


Calm Waters

by Sethrial



Category: After the Storm - Fandom
Genre: Abuse in general, Alcohol Abuse, Drug Abuse, M/M, Multi, bg abuse, bg noncon, bg sexual abuse, but mind the tags, dubcon, if you were okay with the canon material you should be fine with this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:20:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 44,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23179864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sethrial/pseuds/Sethrial
Summary: Fourteen months after the Sympatico, Rich is doing fine. It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn close. He has good friends, a functional family, and a ship that isn't a toxic cesspool of drugs and violence. The experiment is being lauded as an overwhelming success. Now other toxic ships are coming to light, and with them have come more victims of the worst parts of the Michigan Fleet.Connor finds himself with a new posting aboard the nicest damn ship in the fleet, and it's going to take time to find his bearing in new, calmer waters.
Relationships: Basil/OC, Rich/Basil, Rich/Liam, Rich/OC
Comments: 13
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

The new kid is either 13 or a babydoll mod, and young enough that it’s hard for Rich to tell which without getting real up close and personal. He’s used to Liam, who he doesn’t think anyone has ever honestly mistaken for a child, with his overflowing confidence and adult presentation. The new guy standing in the rec room has long, untidy black hair in an attempt at a braid, wide eyes that stay on Rich for a moment longer than is just friendly, and plain, anonymous black jeans and a gray t-shirt that’s just a size too big for him. Maybe an intern who needs a fresh start and still has room to grow, maybe a fully grown technician with a tweak. 

Rich wants to give him the chance to introduce himself before he looks into his personnel file, partly to see how hard he fronts, partly to give him the chance to spin his own story and set the tone for how Rich is going to treat him. Rich can keep it Family Fleet, almost no matter what, but if the new kid is going to try anything with the biggest guy here, he wants to know right off the bat and not be caught unawares. He doesn’t expect anything, and definitely not anything dangerous -- they started going through belongings and collecting contraband after a couple mechanics from the  _ Sympatico  _ snuck knives through decomp -- but if Rich is going to need to start checking IDs when someone knocks on his door in the middle of the night, he wants to know now. 

“Rich,” he says, leaning down a little to offer his hand at a comfortable height. “Rich Merrill. Welcome aboard.” 

He reaches up and gamely puts his tiny hand in Rich’s grip. “Connor Hess.” Connor doesn’t exactly have a firm grip or an authoritative shake, but he doesn’t shy away or freeze up, either. That’s an adult voice, a steady alto, and an adult reaction to someone Rich’s size shoving a hand in his face. Kids tend to balk the first time they come face to face with a soldier mod. 

“Good to meet you, man,” Rich says with a smile. 

“Trust me, the pleasure is  _ all mine,”  _ he grins, and something cold and uncomfortable shoots up Rich’s spine. It takes him a second to recognize it, and it’s gone before he gets a really good look, but there are just a few degrees too much calculation in Connor’s gray eyes. Connor has noticed something about Rich, or thinks he has, and Rich has to pull away and take a deep breath before he can continue. His rational, normal,  _ Reliant _ brain kicks back online and he shoves the old  _ Sympatico  _ habits back into the locker in the back of his mind. He’s not going to play along, not going to flinch or posture or try to control his image for the new kid. Whatever Connor thinks, he thinks, and his opinion isn’t Rich’s business until it has to be. 

The tools that kept him alive during the worst years of his life don’t have any purpose here in this new system, Ms Travis explained when they talked about how hard it was to get rid of old habits, but it isn’t as easy as deciding he doesn’t like them anymore and throwing them overboard. Rich still has all of those instincts, like a bad subprocess that he can’t strip out yet. He might never fully get rid of them. All he can do is consciously choose better habits, actions, and reactions, and hope the rest of his brain gets with the program eventually. 

Right now, he consciously chooses not to react. He looks to Basil for context, to see if anyone else has noticed Connor paying a little too much attention, or if he’s being jumpy over nothing.

Basil looks uncomfortable too, but for Rich, for himself, or just because he’s running on almost 24 hours with no sleep isn’t immediately clear. 

“So, yeah. Ben gave you the tour. That’s everyone who’s awake for day-shift. You’ll meet the other creatures of the night at break-dinner if you’re an early enough riser. Got a berth. Got some food. Got introductions. Got…” Basil scrubs his hands over his face, trying to focus. “God  _ damn  _ it’s late.” He lets his hands drop. “I’ll be in my bunk. If anyone thinks he needs me for anything short of a ship fire, reconsider.” He pats Rich’s shoulder in passing but doesn’t stop to invite him up to untangle whatever the fuck that look from Connor was, if he noticed at all, if there was a look at all. Rich is less wound up than he used to be, but he still thinks way too hard about some things that usually, not always but often enough to be a pattern, turn out to be nothing. 

Basil has been up for at least four straight shifts. Not working the entire time, but unless he caught a nap somewhere and Rich didn’t notice, he hasn’t gotten any meaningful rest in over a day. He isn’t going to be a useful bullshit untangler until he gets some sleep. Rich can maintain a holding pattern for that long. If he can’t, if something else happens, Liam usually picks up his calls, or Mitch is weirdly good at getting to the heart of problems, or he can go to Ben and ask for something tricky and distracting to take up a couple hours. Rich has time. He has options. Worse comes to worse, he has a door that locks and a half full jug of orange creamsicle vodka. He’ll be fine. 

* * *

Rich knows where Connor is from. Of course he does. Even without taking a quick glance through his personnel file - which he might have done, just to get an age on the kid, and found out he was a young looking 24 - the  _ Reliant  _ has been buzzing about him for a week. It’s impossible not to know he’s from the  _ Synergy,  _ when the body count is all anyone’s been talking about since she was found dead in the water fourteen days ago. Clear day, calm waters, and 62 of the 100 crew dead on the decks. 

It makes Rich twitchy to think about. The  _ Sympatico  _ had ended with twelve of fifty dead after a full blown gang war broke out in the mess. What had been going down on the  _ Synergy  _ to end with those kinds of numbers? How was Connor involved, if he was part of the less than half that survived it? Was he an instigator? Was he involved at all? Or was he like Rich, spare parts trying to keep his head above water while the rest of the crew punched holes in the ship and each other? 

Connor doesn’t have many scars that Rich noticed at a glance, but he also hasn’t looked at much other than his face and arms. He has golden tan skin that showed the few Rich spotted clearly. Pinpoint pale spots around his mouth that mean recent, aggressive decontamination, and a small, pink, hook shaped scar on one side of his throat that could be from anything. Cutting himself shaving, getting tagged with a spare knife, someone in his life who liked to bite. Connor’s arms were clean and smooth, so he obviously wasn’t a frequent target, and probably wasn’t involved in that last overwhelming wave of violence that ended with over half a 100 suddenly, messily dead. Rich was almost definitely over reacting. Connor was just getting a good look at the guy who could pick him up and snap him in half with one hand, probably crunching data just as hard as Rich was about whether or not he could be safe here and if it was going to turn into a fight. No one has to get into it with anyone, Rich reassures himself occasionally. Rich doesn’t want to try, and if Connor decides he does, it’s the easiest thing in the world to call security and let them handle it. 

* * *

Rich and Basil talk about it some over Basil’s breakfast, Rich’s dinner, whatever they felt like calling the meal that happened around sunset. (Mitch is in favor of calling it “Steve” when he’s off shift to join them, for lack of a second good word for the overlap of breakfast and dinner. Basil is in favor of reminding Mitch that he’s not half as funny as he thinks he is. Rich just likes watching their comfortable, friendly bickering and eating as much as he can hold.) Basil hadn’t noticed anything odd about the new kid. He was jumpy during the tour and introductions, not as bad as Rich had been last summer, but he didn’t make a lot of eye contact or get much closer than arms length to anyone if he could help it. Connor had eaten half a block for breakfast and hidden the rest in his pocket for later, Basil reports. Hoarding food, definitely, but he’ll grow out of that with regular meals and pay. All they can really do at this point is try not to set him off. 

“He’s a babydoll. Emotions run high,” Rich explains the way Liam had so long ago, and sometimes has to reiterate. “We might have to stop a freak-out or two while he’s settling in. Just… let him work through it and don’t let him scratch your eyes out.”

“Is that what you do when Liam has a bad episode?”

Rich snorts. “That’s what Liam does when  _ I  _ freak out,” he jokes.

“You go for the eyes. Good to know. Note to self, order goggles.” Basil mimes typing on his screen. Rich touches the air where it would turn off his note program and takes a half-assed swipe at his face that wouldn’t connect even if Basil didn’t lean back out of range. They devolve into a stupid giggling mess for a second. 

“And you’re sure there’s no way to get a look at his old records?” Basil asks when they’re done.

“Not unless we have really good probable cause. They’re sealed. Clean slate, remember? We could probably ask security what he got shut down for-“

“And get told to go stuff each other,” Basil cuts in.

“Gladly,” Rich comments. “But… yeah. Unless he really messes up, no one with our clearance has any reason or right to know what Connor was up to on the  _ Synergy.  _ That’s just how this works, baby boy.”

* * *

Whatever he was involved with, now he’s another fleet pet-project like Rich was, so Rich is going to do his level best to be welcoming, patient, and quietly pro-social all over the place. No bad habits, no twisted expectations, and he’ll keep the gulls busy so Connor has an easier time settling in than Rich did. 

“Hey,” Rich says when the community room door opens and Connor peeks in. Second day in a row, but Rich is alone this time. Basil is long since in bed. “Just me.”

“Oh. Hey. Almost didn’t notice you.” 

Rich snorts, because seriously? Okay, he gets it. Connor is trying to be funny. “You wanna come sit?” he offers, nodding to the chair next to him. 

“Sure.” He sounds tired, more than anything. Connor hops up on the chair and pulls his legs up to hide under him. He’s got a wrap patterned with pastel starfish tucked a little higher than Rich would be caught dead in and a standard gray t-shirt that he nearly disappears in. His dark, wavy hair is in a much neater braid than yesterday that falls over one shoulder, almost to his waist, and when Rich reaches his face, his charcoal eyes are in slits, watching him. 

“See something you like?” 

“Man, I’m not going to pretend you aren’t pretty,” Rich laughs. It would be a lie, and he’s never been a good liar. He’s gotten better at making a story out of nothing, and can do it from the other side of a screen okay, but nothing stops the Merrill blush, and nothing gives away the fact that you’re shoveling bullshit faster than turning red from your hairline to your collar. 

“Mm.” Connor closes his eyes and tips his head back against the back of the chair. 

“You okay?” 

“Didn’t sleep well last night,” he admits. “New ship. New noises. My bunk is too big for one.” 

“They set you up with a standard?” Rich asks.

Connor makes an affirmative noise, and for a moment Rich feels stupid. Of course they did. They gave Rich something oversized, sized for him, because Rich was built like an industrial garbage scow when he was starving and still had another four inches to grow. They wouldn’t give Connor something undersized and cramped just because he could cram himself in it with room to spare. 

“Sorry.”    
“For what?” 

Rich doesn’t know how to say ‘for assuming they’d treat you like crap because you’re small’ without opening a can and a half of worms, so he just shrugs and mutters “Nothing. Dumb thought,” and pulls his work screen back up. Five minute breaks mid-shift aren’t a problem, but too long without working too often and he’s going to be asked why he stayed on-shift if he had another obligation. Worse, it’ll be an honest question, not meant to trap him into admitting he’s a slacker, and he’ll feel like crap for the next two days for letting Ben down. 

A few minutes later he realizes Connor is asleep, passed out in his chair, and relaxes half a degree. Rich doesn’t have to worry about being pro-social and showing off good habits to someone who’s unconscious. He can focus on work, and he does, digging into the code. There’s a fad going around the small ship hacking community, convincing your AI they’ve sunk to try to get them to activate their float rings, just so it’s easier to scrape the summer algae. It’s a clever solution for a problem that doesn’t exist, goes wrong more often than not, and has caused panic from passing ships that see a boat floating five feet or more off the surface of the lake. Rich is looking through how the code has changed from iteration to iteration, ship to ship, trying to track down who started it and get them into a position that uses their creative thinking and frankly clever coding for something  _ useful  _ for a change. 

He’s so distracted, he doesn’t realize Connor is awake or moving until suddenly he has an armful of new shipmate pressed trembling against one side, dragging Rich’s oversized arm around his skinny shoulders and forcefully lacing their fingers. A moment later the latch turns and Mitch is in the doorway, normal smile twitching downward into confusion. 

“Am I interrupting something?” Mitch asks, eyes flicking between the two of them. 

“I don’t think so?” Rich tries. He doesn’t know what’s going on either, except that Connor has a hair-fine tremor running through him where he’s pressed against Rich’s hip and is refusing to let go of his hand. 

“Nothing important,” Connor says, light and a little flirty, voice steadier than his shoulders. “What can  _ I  _ do for  _ you _ , officer?” 

“Uh. Just looking for Rich. Your friends are still coming in for the tournament, right? We need final word on numbers for the big rec room.” 

Rich shoves the confusion overwhelming his brain away and focuses on the concrete question. “Planning on it. Me, plus two, and if Trimmer doesn’t show up I’ll kick his ass for it later.” 

“On the one hand, I would pay good credits to see that,” Mitch laughs. “On the other, I  _ am technically  _ still on duty and can’t officially endorse kicking anyone’s ass, even Trimmer’s.” 

“Sure thing,  _ officer,”  _ Rich teases. 

“You kids play safe,” is Mitch’s parting shot, and he shuts the door behind him with a quiet click. 

There’s a long second where nobody moves. Rich is running the numbers in his head, trying to figure out what just happened. Then Connor doubles over around his arm and makes an awkward, quiet hiccuping noise that might be a sob. Oh. Security. Right, new kid from a hell-boat where security probably wasn’t as clean and professional as the  _ Reliant  _ keeps hers, and definitely not as friendly as Mitch, if the way Connor is shaking all over is any indication. 

“Hey,” Rich says softly, for lack of anything constructive coming to mind. “Hey.” Connor is still wrapped around his arm like a vice, so he lifts him into his lap and gets another arm gently around him, holding him close. “It’s okay. Nothing dangerous. Mitch isn’t gonna hurt you. It’s safe. It’s safe here.” 

“Fuck,” Connor mutters. “Fuck.  _ Fuck.”  _ A deep breath, another hiccup on the way out, and he untangles from around Rich’s arm to curl up tight in his lap in a miserable little bundle, head down, arms around his stomach. “Sorry.” 

“It’s alright. You’re safe now. It’s okay.” Rich is completely out of his depth. He doesn’t entirely know how he survived six months of freaking out every time he saw a baton, until Trimmer finally convinced him to try anxiety pills, much less how to drag someone else out of the shaking, stomach knotting terror when it happens. Should he pull a Liam and find out where to put an anonymous tip that maybe Connor would like an informational packet on anti-anxiety aids? The  _ Reliant _ is set up for them, medical-tech wise, and it wouldn’t take a lot of paperwork to get the dispenser to hand out two every morning instead of just one. 

Maybe he should work on helping him develop a friendship with the security team that Rich has somehow managed to get comfortably close to after so long. Probably not at the Spellcraft tournament in two days. That might be too many people at once, too soon. But getting him in on movie night wouldn’t be a big deal, or they could try to get junk food night going again. That had gotten a little expensive for everyone who didn’t work three extra shifts a week as a habit, but they could drop it down to once a month, or just once in a while, or Rich could cover a couple extra people. 

“Can I stay here for a while?” Connor asks thickly, like he’s trying not to cry. 

“Long as you need,” Rich says. That’s something he can definitely do. He keeps his arms around Connor and gets back to work. He’s got three hours left on this shift and nowhere important to be afterwards. Connor can steal his lap for a few hours. He’s small and light enough that he isn’t a distraction, especially when the little hiccup noises stop and he falls back asleep with one hand fisted in Rich’s shirt. 

It’s not perfect. It’s not even all that good of a solution, but a thought is starting to form in Rich’s mind. He’s not going to run protection for Connor, mostly because there’s nothing to protect from here, but Rich knows exactly what he’s going through, and can act as a buffer between him and the insanity that normal life feels like when you get out of a toxic ship. Just for a month or two, maybe not even that long. Just until he figures out that he’s not in any danger here and settles down. 


	2. Chapter 2

Three days in, Connor is starting to figure things out. He knows which of the IST community rooms is popular, which one is informally set aside for when these idiots want to get rowdy, and which one is Rich’s. The popular one is the favorite lounge of one of the ship’s cats. She’s very pregnant, ready to give birth any day now, and has a fan club made up of most of the tech team, half of the security crew, and a handful of mechanics who all dote on her, bring her food, and wait with bated breath for when they’ll finally have kittens again. It’s also stacked high with board and card games, and usually has at least one small group playing something. 

The rowdy lounge is sometimes empty, sometimes full of young men with too much energy and free time tagging and wrestling. Either way, the furniture always smells just a little bit like sweat, and has a bad tendency to diffuse the scent of hot, busy bodies into the air. It makes Connor feel like the walls are closing in, so he mentally marks it as a place to avoid and does so with extreme prejudice. 

Rich’s rec room is quiet and full of plants. Every flat surface has at least one, and it’s clear from a quick glance that more shelves and tables have been added to make space for more. Rich doesn’t have an official, legal claim on it, of course, but by how much he uses it, and how few other people go there, it’s definitely his territory. Rich does his work there on days he’s working in the  _ Reliant _ . Second shift, every day that Connor has checked so far, and first shift yesterday. 

Connor had taken second that day to try to get some time with Rich, away from everyone else, come in ten minutes early, and found Rich and Basil curled up together on Rich’s usual couch, touching each other idly while they worked with their free hands on separate screens in silence. Basil’s gloved hand was carded up into Rich’s Hastings red hair, and Rich had his spare hand wrapped most of the way around Basil’s skinny, bare thigh. Basil’s black sarong was hitched high around his hips, showing off miles of freckle dusted leg and barely keeping him modest. 

Both had spared him a glance and a “Hey,” and “Good morning,” when Connor sat and arranged himself on a free chair, then went back to what they were doing. 

Ten minutes later, the shift change bell chimed, Basil and Rich shared a long, wet kiss, and Basil fell out of it sighing. “What a fucking  _ day.”  _

“Bed time?” Rich asked. 

_ “Yes.”  _

“Shower first. Don’t go to bed with lake hair. That’s gross.” 

“Basil grumbled, rolled to his feet, and finally said “Alright, but only because you asked so nicely.” 

“Love you, baby boy.” 

More grumbling, and Basil kissed Rich’s cheek before he left. Connor mentally tagged Basil as Rich’s territory, too, and got to work. 

* * *

That brings Rich’s assets to an entire community room (and a good smelling one, at that), a cute little genius who worked hard and knew what his legs looked like, a security officer with an easy smile, a table in the mess hall at breakfast and dinner, and a half hour in the shower twice a day. At least, that’s what Connor has been able to spot in three days. He’s certain there’s more, maybe a few of the technicians and mechanics, maybe some connections off the ship, but Connor hasn’t been able to find concrete evidence of anything else, and he’s not going to jump the gun and give this guy any more reputation than he deserves. 

It’s still a lot. The showers especially. That was a surprise when Connor went digging, looking for a time when he wasn’t likely to get cornered and ganged up on, already naked and alone. For one, there was already a subprogram in the  _ Reliant’s _ system to track who showered when. No pictures, but it tagged body signatures by height and weight and organized them into clean, clear tables. Connor had been hoping for an off time, middle of the night maybe, when no one showered, and had found two half hour long chunks of time every single day with only one body signature logged in the IST shower block. Always the same one, 6’8” and 350 pounds. Three guesses who and the first two don’t count. 

Somehow, Rich had carved out sole ownership of a public amenity just for himself, for as long as he wanted it, and held it well enough that in three days no one had contested it. Hot damn. He was definitely in charge.

That had started him looking into Rich’s past in earnest. Fourteen months on the  _ Reliant _ , and his work history is sealed before that, other than a note saying he did his internship here. Transfer records from the  _ Sympatico _ , bare as anything Connor has ever seen. It takes him a minute to remember why the  _ Sympatico  _ sounds so familiar, and when it clicks his eyes widen. Huh.  _ Huh _ . Rich survived that shut down and managed to stay in the fleet afterwards. Another toxic ship that ran on drugs, sex, and violence stripped to the paint and redistributed as part of Her Majesty Clearwater’s grand reform. The first one, if Connor remembers correctly. Most of its members had been shipped out within six months, but here Rich is, happy, healthy, and running things right under the Admiral’s nose. He has an order of merit, too, reason left blank, and Connor bets it’s something juicy. Maybe deposing whoever was the big dog on deck was before Rich got here with his muscles, scars, brains, and experience hard earned from four years on the sickest shit heap the Michigan Fleet has ever let sail. Ben certainly seems to like him well enough, and the  _ Reliant _ is well run, ticking along just fine. People keep covered, for the most part, but in three days Connor hasn’t seen or collected any suspicious bruises. Rich doesn’t come off as a power house, but maybe he’s tough enough that whatever’s left of the other gangs doesn’t feel safe making a move against him. 

* * *

Now, at 2300, lying in his room in the dark, Connor is trying to put together a plan to get in on that. He’s the new kid here, no assets except for credits in the bank and possibly one or two plugs, if he can find them where they’ve been scattered around the fleet and earn back the freedom to go pay a personal visit. He has no chance going in as a partner, not right off the bat, anyway. This isn’t a pharmaceuticals ship, Connor doesn’t have the clearance or leverage to turn it into one, and his experience with exotic chemistry isn’t extensive enough to run anything major, anything good, out of his berth. 

Connor’s best bet, honestly, is to be an irresistible piece of ass and negotiate some protection out of that. He’s bent over for worse than a ridiculously well built soldier mod, and he wouldn’t mind a little trading around, as long as it stayed on-ship and between friends. To get under the Rich Merrill umbrella of safety and prestige, he would do a lot more than blow on a couple sparkling clean whistles. 

This ship has a med-crew of eight, two per shift. When Connor dug through the crew manifesto, getting a feel for who was where and what this ship actually did, that had nearly sent him into a spiral, because no way a med team that small could keep a 200 running clean. But so far, no one he’s seen has love-spots or unfortunate itches. (He was assured on the  _ Washington  _ that the scars from getting rid of his spots so fast would fade quickly. A month, two at the outside. He wasn’t permanently disfigured.) It’s possible, likely even, that the  _ Reliant  _ keeps everything in-house and no one has anything to pass around, and anyone who trades off ship checks first and cleans up after. A clean dish grows no culture, as the saying goes. 

Right now, Connor is a little too shaky to plan effectively. His only devious plot tonight is to show up looking lonely and gorgeous. Which… might work, actually. Fact: Rich already thinks he’s pretty. Fact: Rich has already shielded him from security once. Fact: Connor has already read a healthy helping of pity and concern off Rich, directed at him, and Connor knows exactly how easy it is to flip those into possessiveness. 

He’s tying his wrap on, the really cute, slightly too short one with the overlapping sunflower print, before he has a chance to overthink it. Finger combs his hair, smudges a little khol around his eyes, bites his lower lip to make it puff up and flush just a touch, and he’s out the door. No shirt, no shoes, no problem. His hair is loose and a little messy, his clothes are just tight enough to show off, and he knows from long experience that he looks  _ incredibly  _ fuckable. 

“Hey- Oh.” Rich looks down another foot, at Connor, looking up through his lashes. “Hey. You okay?” 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Connor admits. 

Rich nods and yawns. “I know the feeling. You want something to take the edge off?” 

Connor’s plan is gone before he can blink when a wave of aching hunger crashes over him. He’s been ignoring it for weeks, managing, but it comes roaring to the forefront of his mind the second anything is on offer. “ _ God,  _ yes,” he breathes, desperate. 

“Come on in.” He stops taking up the entire doorway and Connor squeezes in past him and sits on the edge of the bed. Bed on the floor, not a bunk, plenty big enough for two, even if one of them is a soldier tweak. God. This kid has  _ everything.  _

Rich digs around in his locker for a minute and surfaces with two jugs, and Connor’s heart sinks a little. Not that liquor isn’t nice, but he’d been hoping for something fun, something exotic, something to really get him out of his own head for a couple hours. 

“I’ve got a little blackberry left and a whole lot of orange creamsicle. You’d be doing me a favor if you polished off the blackberry.” 

“Hate it that much?” Connor holds out both hands for the jug and gives it a sniff when he gets it. It smells  _ vile,  _ but probably won’t treat him worse than half the shit he got into, or that got into him, on the  _ Synergy _ . 

“Personal favorite, actually. It’s… uh. It’s kind of stupid.” 

“You can tell me all about it once I’ve had a couple shots,” Connor says, resigning himself to just a bit of hard drinking. He offers the first drink to the lake, “May she rest easy,” he murmurs, then takes a solid slug of what turns out to be vodka, not pure gutrot but definitely not a high quality batch, and makes a face. There’s a very nice blackberry aftertaste that does absolutely nothing for how his tongue has shriveled up and died inside his mouth. 

Still, blackberry vodka is unlikely to kill him, especially with a generously estimated five shots left in the bottle. He takes another, smaller sip and sits back down on the bed with his leg tucked up and his knee resting on Rich’s monstrous thigh. Rich is in a shirt and boxers, and is swallowing a mouthful of orange creamsicle probably also vodka like it’s water. He gives a long, heartfelt sigh and smiles. 

“So. Why am I drinking  _ your  _ personal favorite?” Connor asks, clipping his words politely so he doesn’t slur. 

“There’s only a little left, and blackberry vodka might be my favorite drink in the world. Dumb brain says I have to ration it. Smart brain says I can’t go get more until I have an empty jug. Only room for two in the locker. My day off is in two days, too soon to line up with rationing, but I can’t convince myself to enjoy it if it means I won’t have more tomorrow, just in case,” Rich explains. 

“You’re right,” Connor agrees. “That is… kind of stupid.” 

Rich muffles a laugh behind his hand and Connor grins. God, he even has a nice laugh. Between Rich’s size, charisma, and brains, he’ll have the whole  _ Reliant  _ under his thumb within five years. Connor needs in on this, like, yesterday. 

They take another drink apiece. Connor is feeling pleasantly buzzed now, a little light headed, a little heavy in the body. Blackberry vodka is better taken in sips, and his stomach appreciates him going slowly. 

“Thanks, by the way.” He’s getting a good reaction so far and wants to get this train back on track. Possessive feelings by the end of the night. Easy peasy, just have to hammer in how pitiful he is, how much he needs Rich’s protection. 

“Hmm?” Rich asks. 

“For your help earlier. With security.” He’d been stupid, moved way too fast, but when he’d heard those awful shit-kicking boots marching up the hall in perfect 4/4 time Connor’s mind blanked, went completely static, and all that mattered was getting behind someone, anyone, the nearest warm body that wasn’t a tiny-tweak. Connor had taken some serious liberties, but Rich hadn’t done anything to stop him, and begging forgiveness wasn’t awful. He’d do what he had to if it meant keeping something solid between his ribs and those boots. 

“I owe you,” Conner finishes, apology and promise all at once. 

“No. No, Connor. Shh. It’s okay.” 

Connor looks up at him, trying to understand. Rich’s cheeks are red and he looks upset. Oh. Oh  _ fuck.  _ “I’m sorry! I’m really. Fuck. I’m so sorry. I won’t-” He hitches and chokes on a breath when his stomach flips and rises. No, please, not now. Bad timing. Connor swallows hard and tries to keep everything down, liquor and terror and the gut wrenching certainty that this is the beginning of the end. 

“Connor,” Rich’s voice cracks. His hand starts moving and Connor flinches, preparing for pain. Coming in from the left. Arm, maybe ribs. He could live with another broken collar bone. As long as he doesn’t have to get his hips or jaw reconstructed again, as long as he can work, he’ll be fine. Rich wouldn’t destroy a potential asset. He’s smarter than that. He has to be. Please, let him be smart. 

After a few seconds of nothing, Connor dares to crack an eye. Rich is sitting, frozen, holding onto his own wrist so tight his hand is starting to tinge blue. 

“I’m sorry,” Connor whispers, not really knowing what’s going on. Nothing hurts yet. Okay. Maybe if he keeps apologizing that will keep being a thing. 

“No, Connor. No. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not mad. I don’t  _ want-”  _ Rich makes a choked off sound. “I never want to hurt you.” 

Connor nods, trying to force his brain back into motion. The roaring in his ears makes it hard to understand what Rich is saying, but he thinks he caught enough to get it. Rich doesn’t want to hurt him. Good. Crystal clear. Message received. Don’t fuck up again and no one has to get hurt. 

“Mitch isn’t going to hurt you either,” Rich continues. 

The security officer doesn’t do Rich’s personal enforcing. Got it. Smart. Too many things can go wrong when that goes on for too long, especially when business mixes with pleasure mixes with libido suppressants. Jealousy happens. Caved in rib cages happen. 

“You’re safe here,” Rich finishes softly, like a promise. 

“I’m… safe,” Connor repeats. He feels his eyes well up with tears and doesn’t try to stop them. He’s safe. Rich is going to keep him safe. It worked. Connor has a place here, a gang, headed by the smartest, strongest son of a bitch he’s ever gotten to pick him up. He can make this work. Play it safe, be smart, listen to Rich and not fuck around behind his back too much, maybe not at all. 

“Okay,” Connor says through tears and around a stomach that’s roiling like a category three. He’s fine though. Takes another sip of vodka and washes down the terror. “Okay.

“Okay,” Rich answers. He finally lets go of his wrist. “Can I… touch you?” 

Like he needs permission. Maybe he likes the game, though. Connor nods and prepares himself. Hastings have a lot of dick, and whatever else this kid is crossed with probably didn’t shrink it by much. 

All Rich does is run a featherlight hand through Connor’s hair, pulling the waves back where they’re stuck to his face with clammy fear sweat. He does the same on the other side and tucks it behind his ear. 

“Oh!” he says, running a finger over the pointed tip of Connor’s ear. “Is that… Did you get that done somewhere?” 

Connor snort laughs, because seriously? And the tension breaks like an icicle being snapped off a relay dish. “Tweak thing,” he explains. “Babydolls come in something like twelve strains, all with different features. Don’t know all of ‘em, personally. I’m half  _ Pixie  _ strain, noticeable for its beautiful golden skin and fanciful pointed ears. You like?” He turns his head side to side, showing off. Connor is magnificently drunk after the adrenaline drop and not able to control his slur. Those were all words he wanted to say, though. Vodka really isn’t so bad, he’s starting to think. 

“It’s cute. I like it.” 

“What about you, soldier boy? Pure Hastings, or is someone hiding an Archangel somewhere in your family tree?” He’s not betting on a pure strain of anything. For one thing, he’s almost human sized, and for all his coloring is Hastings top to bottom - except those eyes. Those eyes are baseline - he doesn’t have the sharply tapered waist or  _ expansive  _ shoulders the old school Hastings are always shown with. His shoulders are massive and he isn’t carrying a ton of extra around the stomach, but Rich is brick-like in his proportions, not triangular. 

“Have you ever heard of the SS strain?” Rich asks. 

“I think so, once or twice. Tell me about it.” 

Tweak talk is always a good get to know you. They talk genetics for a while, drinking vodka and sharing light touches. The blackberry runs out fast and they end up passing the creamsicle back and forth, tiny sips for Connor, long drinks for Rich. 

There’s a point in the night where Connor’s memory stops dead. He’s taking the jug, raising it to his lips, and then he’s on his side tucked against something big and warm that’s starting to move in place, piercing sunlight coming in through a window with no curtains. A heavy arm is wrapped over him, pinning him down. For a moment he doesn’t know where he is. His aching head kicks into high gear, figuring out how he’s going to talk his way back to his berth in one piece. He’s not supposed to sleep over, not for just anyone. This isn’t where he’s supposed to be. The light is wrong. There’s no plastic stench. Fuck.  _ Fuck.  _

Rich’s low voice grumbles “Stop alarm.  _ Stop _ . I’m fucking  _ up  _ already,” and the rest of Connor’s brain catches up to the present. Rich Merrill.  _ Reliant _ . New posting after almost two weeks of getting cleaned up, inside and out. He’d come here last night with a half assed plan that worked, and now he has someone looking out for him, someone who lets him sleep in his bed, and who doesn’t take without asking, if the conspicuous lack of ache in Connor’s body means anything. 

Well, except his head. Connor’s head is pounding like someone is beating on it with a mallet, and the light really isn’t helping. He rolls over and covers his head with the pretty blue bedspread, groaning. Rich shifts enough that they aren’t pressed together anymore and rests one of those huge hands on the back of his head. 

“Hold on. I’ll get you a painkiller,” he says softly, almost sweetly. 

Fucking finally, something good. Connor lies still, willing his stomach to settle, until the door creaks open and shut a second time and Rich’s weight makes the bed dip down on one side. 

Connor’s new found good mood disappears as soon as he sees what Rich has for him. Small green tea, his morning block, and a single bog standard anti-inflammatory in a one dose paper sleeve. Rich hands all of them over like he’s doing Connor a favor and doesn’t seem to notice how disappointed he is by how little he’s getting. 

First day, and he’s already had a healthy share of what passes for good liquor around here, Connor knows he really shouldn’t expect more. Patience. He can have patience for now, and either work on synthesizing his own recreationals, find someone Rich will let him make a deal with, or just figure out how to get his arm broken so he can have some real pain pills again. 

It’s early. Morning four on his new ship. If things go well he could stay here for years. As much as he aches, as hungry as he is, he can’t rush getting set up comfortably. This is just going to take time. 

He swallows the pill with a sip of tea and chews one corner off his block. Rich has four blocks, a container of pineapple, and apparently an iron stomach, because he starts biting blocks in half and washing them down with chunks of fruit, absolutely no hint of a hangover turning him off his breakfast. 

As far as bosses go, Connor could do, and has done, a lot worse. For the first time in almost three weeks - if he’s being honest, for the first time in almost four years - things seem like they might turn out okay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nyeh heh heh. Hope you enjoyed this chapter and are looking forward to the next one. Drop me a message if you liked it, or if you hated it. Attention feeds this monstrous beast and I'm starving these days.


	3. Chapter 3

There are things about Connor that don’t add up. 

The way he touches and the ways he wants to be touched aren’t anywhere near equal. Rich puzzles over how to ask about it through almost a week of messing around. He’s latched onto Rich quickly, after that late night conversation and quiet, cuddly morning after.

“I’m not into foreplay,” Connor explains, on the tail end of a long, awkward conversation about how it’s not a matter of owing and collecting, how no one is counting orgasms or balancing hands against mouths. “Quick and dirty is fine by me. I’m an easy-O. Get me off once and I’m good.” 

“Fair enough. I just want to make sure you know you don’t have to do anything you don’t feel right about,” Rich says, trying to be relieved. He has to trust Connor to know what he wants. Rich’s instincts lie. They’re tuned to a different situation, the worst possible scenario, and Connor has already explained at length, privately, that he’s from a different ship with different rules. He never felt like he didn’t have options. Weapons weren’t common on the  _ Synergy _ , and no one ever held him at knife point or physically forced him into anything. 

Connor snorts. “I’m good with this. This?” He gestures to Rich, towering over him when they’re both sitting down. “This is great. No complaints here.”

Still, worry sits under Rich’s skin and itches like ringworm. Connor blows him like he’s getting paid by the hour, working him up achingly slow and sweet with his mouth on Rich’s ears and neck, then begging him to “Lie back, babe, let me get this,” and putting on a show. 

Connor doesn’t have a gag reflex to speak of and could suck a marble through a straw. He’s skilled enough to learn exactly what Rich wants and give it to him every time, talented enough to keep it fresh and exciting, and adventurous enough to try that weird thing that Basil has always wanted to do but doesn’t know how to ask Liam about. (That weird thing is reverse wrangler, which makes Rich have to take a break and duck across the hall to his own berth so he doesn’t laugh in Basil’s face. He  _ knows  _ his baby boy doesn’t have a lot of experience, and there are some positions that just don’t work with size differences like theirs, not if Basil likes his pelvis in one piece, but he still could have at least  _ asked _ .)

Then Rich gets his mouth or hands on his cock and Connor goes off like a bottle rocket after ten minutes of warm up. 

“God,” he breathes, arm over his eyes. “God, you’re good at that.” 

“You’re one to talk.” Rich is comfortable and sated. Usually he has two in him, once in a while three, but it’s been every night for the last week and a half, since he and Connor started fooling around regularly, and he’s only managing one at a time. If not Connor, Rich is with Basil, or both of them team up on him in his room and Rich gets to watch them have fun once he’s completely fucked out. 

“Can I stay?” Connor asks, same as always.

“Sure,” Rich says. Connor doesn’t say anything about him straightening his berth out one last time before bed, or wiping down himself, his chair, and the desk Connor sat on. Connor cleans himself up a lot less thoroughly and slides under the covers to wait for Rich to be done. 

The upside to their new arrangement is that, going to bed already feeling sated and heavy every single night, Rich is going through a lot less vodka this week. His morning shot still happens most mornings, mostly because it makes his anti-anxiety hit faster, but between good sex and having someone lean and clingy to hold at night, he has no trouble getting to sleep and staying that way. The double shot he’s been using to wind down at the end of the night isn’t necessary right now. 

Rich coils in close and tries not to worry, because it’s different. Connor isn’t him. The  _ Synergy  _ wasn’t the  _ Sympatico _ . He’s going to have his own bad habits to work through, and he doesn’t need Rich in his business trying to fix him before he’s ready. 

* * *

“Hey, cutie. Do you have time to talk?” Rich asks. Liam picked up the call, but he’s elbow deep in potted plants and not looking at Rich. His focus is entirely on the greenery under his hands that’s clipping through the bottom of the screen a little. It’s kind of awkward to look at him through a film of half-leaves. 

“ _ Just  _ talk, I’m afraid,” Liam says. “Sorry. We’ve got a fungus running rampant and I’m sorting and culling today. No time for anything fun.” 

“That’s fine. I had a serious question.” 

“Whatever it is, you didn’t pick it up from me. I’ve been on antivirals for a  _ month  _ now trying to clean out a nasty throat thing.” 

Rich laughs. “No, no, I’m clean. Fresh check up with every new partner, just like we talked about. It’s not that.” 

“Okay, good. What’s on your mind, sweetie?” Liam asks. He makes a face that Rich knows isn’t directed at him and throws a plant to the right. 

“What’s the recommended daily calorie count for someone with your tweak?” Rich asks. 

“Mm. Depends on a range of factors. We have a lower resting metabolism, but it kicks into overdrive if we’re active enough. Different organ to muscle ratio means we have slightly different nutritional needs and should be getting a larger percentage of our calories from high-vitamin foods, not just protein blocks, or taking multivitamins as part of our routine. As a rule we’re really  _ not  _ rated for large amounts of physical stress and shouldn’t be in a job that keeps us running around constantly, so if things are going right we shouldn’t need as much as a baseline human except for on the occasional high-activity day.” Liam sorts through plants while he talks. Most get thrown to the right immediately, but a few get a longer look and are eventually carried to a table to the left. 

“Round numbers. For an average babydoll in a low-stress job, is 1000 calories enough to keep them running at capacity?” Rich asks. He’s been watching Connor, how he eats in particular. Half a block for breakfast and usually a carton of juice, saves the other half for lunch, and a full block and some fruit for dinner. 

“They’d be trim, but not starving. 1200 is a better baseline. I aim for around 1500, but I walk a lot. Why?” 

“Huh. Is there anything… I don’t know, a disease or something, that would make that not enough?” 

“Not that wouldn’t have a whole host of worse symptoms.  _ Why,  _ sweetheart? Is something wrong with the rations on the  _ Reliant _ ? Are you still getting enough to eat?” 

“I’m fine. There’s just…” Rich runs a hand through his hair. Connor deserves privacy, but there’s something wrong. “There’s a new guy, a babydoll, really cute and friendly. He eats plenty, I think, but he’s been dropping weight anyway. He was pretty thin a week ago. Last night I could count his ribs by feel. Is that normal? Am I overreacting?” 

Liam looks concerned. He stops sorting plants and strips off his gloves to work on his screen. “What’s his name? I might be able to get into his medical records and see if he’s predisposed to anything. It could be serious if he’s losing weight that fast.” 

“Connor Hess, IST.” Rich doesn’t feel great about it, but if it’s serious he wants to know before it turns into an emergency. 

“Connor… Hess,” Liam repeats slowly, typing. “Looks like his medical records are sealed.” There’s a furrow between his brows that Rich doesn’t like. “Completely sealed. I can’t get in. You’re close to Connor?” 

“Pretty close, yeah.” 

“Do you know how much he drinks, and if he’s taking any medicine with his liquor? Prescription or just out of the med-kits, either one,” Liam asks, voice calm, but there’s something serious in his eyes. 

“Couple drinks a day, not much more than me, but he likes something on his stomach when he drinks,” Rich explains. “Usually right after breakfast and dinner.” 

“Do you know  _ what  _ he’s drinking?” 

“He calls them California Cocktails. No idea what’s in them, but-” The screen goes blank. “Hello? Hey, Liam? Liam, can you hear me?” The connection is dead. Rich tries again and gets nothing, which is weird. There haven’t been outages like this in years. He checks his connection to the network, stable, and calls Trimmer to trouble-shoot and see if it’s the  _ Reliant  _ or what. 

Trimmer picks up on the fifth ring and says, “What’s up hoss? Kinda busy. Can I call you back?” 

“Yeah, not an emergency.”

They hang up. The  _ Reliant’s _ connection is fine. It must be something on Liam’s end. Rich really shouldn’t be surprised. Everything except the bio lab on the  _ Genesis  _ is held together with electrical tape and prayers. Rich will probably hear from Liam at some point in the next 24 hours and they can talk about how he needed to rewire his janky ship to get it up to 22nd century standards. Then they can have a  _ long, deep _ conversation about it on Rich’s next day off. 

* * *

“Good morning, Rich,” Ms Travis says brightly. 

“Morning, ma’am,” Rich says back, just a little out of it. He’s had his morning shot, his anti-anxiety, and breakfast, and it’s going to be a few minutes of sipping hot, sweet tea before he’s firing on all cylinders and ready to really talk. They fill the time with pleasantries. Little how’s your ship, how’s your family, how about that storm, back and forth that fills space for five minutes until the caffeine kicks in and Rich can think well enough to have feelings. 

“So, I have a new ship mate. His name is Connor and he… he’s got some damage.” 

“Damage?” Ms Travis asks. 

“He’s from another messed up ship and keeps having… really familiar reactions to stuff. Like issues with security and protein blocks and stuff,” Rich explains. 

“How does it feel to be on the other side of that exchange?” 

“Kind of awkward. Part of me wants to sit him down and just… explain how everything is different here, how  _ nice  _ everything is and how no one’s going to attack him in his sleep or anything, but I don’t know how things were on the Synergy, or how he’ll respond to the only person he’s managed to get close to… I guess…  _ seeing through  _ him that way. I was so scared of people thinking I was some kind of fragile victim who couldn’t take care of himself. I don’t want to put him in the same spot or make him think I don’t think he can handle himself. I’m trying to figure out how to let him know he’s safe here without outright saying “hey, no one on this ship has ever stabbed another human being, except for that time with Nate and the fork, and that was at least 90% an accident.” He probably, one, won’t believe me, and two, won’t appreciate having a phobia announced like that.” 

Ms Travis nods. “I understand. It can be difficult to help others through the same process you went through so recently. Do you feel like your mental health is suffering from him placing so much trust in you over your shipmates? Are your mental maintenance habits keeping up with the extra stress?” 

“Drinking less, cleaning more, spending a lot more time on my board. My legs and core are enjoying it. Metabolism is keeping up.” The last part isn’t perfectly true, but of all the secret blackmarket deals that could be going on on any given ship, the  _ Reliant’s  _ thriving snacks for blocks trade is about as wholesome as it gets. Directly buying nutrition blocks with credits is a misdemeanor for both parties, but laundering the credits through bread and ham first makes it just this side of legal, and Ben has turned out to be a sandwich fiend. He and Rich have an understanding. Rich gets Ben’s lunch blocks three days a week, Ben gets all the ham and swiss on rye he can eat, and no one mentions it outside of their Tuesday evening trade off. Rich hoards most of the extra blocks to pay for liquor, but it’s nice to have an extra few thousand calories stored up for a high-energy day. 

“It sounds like you’re managing your mental health well,” she seems proud of him, and that’s enough to make Rich beam. “What do you think is responsible for the drop in your drinking habit?” 

“Oh, uh.” He doesn’t really want to tell Ms Travis that he’s getting laid three times as often and it makes him tired. “I’ve, uh, replaced it with an alternate habit.” 

She turns serious, suddenly, eyes sharpening in that subtle way Rich is more attuned to than he likes. “What sort of alternate habit?” 

Cold washes through Rich. Is he not supposed to be sleeping with the new kid? Yes, Connor is very damaged and doesn’t have a ton of healthy, prosocial habits built up yet, but Rich has made sure he isn’t taking advantage of him or pressuring him into anything he doesn’t want to do. “Sex?” he squeaks, forcing his voice to work. “Connor initiated it! He, uh. He comes to me when he feels like it. I swear I’m not forcing him or putting pressure on him or-” it comes out way too fast and an octave higher than usual.

“Rich. Breathe. Mental maintenance skills,” Ms Travis says, interrupting his spiral. 

He takes a deep, lung-aching breath and lets it out slowly. 

“I believe you would never force yourself on anyone, and I trust that Connor understands there are structures in place to defend him if, in some distant hypothetical, someone on your ship didn’t respect his boundaries,” she says calmly. The sharp, calculating look has left her face, but Rich still has to focus carefully on the fact that he hasn’t done anything wrong and she knows it to stop him from excusing himself from their monthly meeting early. “Do you need a moment to breathe?” she asks.

Rich nods and she pulls up a side screen with something unrelated to poke at while he works on that, and his heart calms down to its resting speed after a minute of nothing happening. 

“So. Yeah. Less vodka.” Rich says when he’s good to talk some more. His hands and face still feel cold and a little numb, but he’s not in danger of breaking down anymore. 

“I’m proud of you for working on your substance dependence and finding alternate methods of relaxation,” Ms. Travis says. “How is the hover boarding going? You had a competition not too long ago, didn’t you?” 

“Yeah, about a month ago now. It went great! I placed fourth overall and first in the newcomer category by, like, a landslide. One of the judges was a little harsh because of Katrina and some bad blood. The camera when they interviewed me was  _ wild.”  _ That stuck in his head more than anything else about Chicago. The communications tech was something like fifty years behind the fleet. No one had implants, unless they were visiting like him. Everyone else used big, chunky, external technology made of metal and glass, most of which was at least a little broken. 

“Congratulations! Do you think you’re going to continue to pursue it? It seems like you have potential.” 

“I doubt I’ll ever be world famous,” Rich admits, scratching the back of his head, “but I’d like to compete some more and see where it goes. It’s a good excuse to travel, if nothing else.”

“They would be pretty small competitions if only the world famous riders competed,” Ms Travis points out. 

“Yeah. Yeah! I guess you’re right. I’m going to keep trying and see where it takes me.” It’s almost word for word from the puppets, but it feels good to say. Rich still goes back and rewatches a video or two every once in a while, when Ms. Travis thinks he could stand to have a refresher. They’re not assigned and he doesn’t have homework, but it helps sometimes to see his problems reduced down to felt and googly eye levels and solved in thirty minutes or less. 

Ms. Travis might be humming the song from  _ Try, Try Again. _ Rich laughs. 

“I’m glad to see you thriving,” she says. “Keep working on your hobbies and habits, and don’t worry about Connor too much. Put your own life vest on first. He has his own support structure in place, and is responsible for himself first and foremost. You’re doing extraordinarily well.” 

“Thank you, ma’am,” he says shyly. He’s going to try. That’s all he can really do at this point. 


	4. Chapter 4

They’re in the bottom-deck lounge tonight, sitting in a circle, passing around a bowl of something sweet and syrupy that Connor has long since forgotten the name of. He stares into its depths and sees himself staring back, pixie perfect and just a little distorted by the concave of the bowl. 

“So why don’t you tell me about Rich?” Ms. Travis asks. She takes the bowl and dips one dainty finger in, licks it clean, and passes to the left. She used a different finger every time it came around to her, not a double-dipper. It might be a smart way to keep track of hits and make sure she doesn’t take too much, or maybe she’s just finicky. Either way, she only has four left before she has to start using toes. 

“He’s… great,” Connor says, sprawling comfortably. There are pillows all around him, nowhere uncomfortable to rest. He’s the king of pillow mountain. 

Behind him, Rich says “Aw, thanks man. You’re great.” He has those huge, solid hands around Connor’s bare thighs and is pressing them open with absurd gentleness. Rich could snap him like a twig, easy, and all he does with that strength is hold him a little too tight some nights. 

“Tell me more,” Ms Travis says, leaning forward. Her wild eyes bore into Connor and she’s wearing a manic smile and nothing else. “This is a safe space.” 

“He’s just, like, freakishly nice. Huge, kinda messed up arms, but I’ve never seen him in a fight. Whatever he’s doing, he’s doing it right. His people seem happy.” 

“Are you happy?” 

Connor leans back into Rich’s lap, smiling up at him. “I’m so happy. Are you happy?” 

“Of course I’m happy,” Rich says back with his stupidly cute smile. 

_ “Are  _ you happy?” Ms Travis asks. She’s close now, inches from Connor’s face. Her bare breasts hang down between her arms and her breath smells like acid and rotten protein. “He treats you well?” 

“I’m- I’m happy here. Of course I am. There’s nothing wrong. No one’s gone after me in weeks. No one uses me. No one thinks I’m a fuck up.” 

_ “No one thinks you’re a fuck up,”  _ Ms Travis purrs in Caduceus’s voice, right next to Connor’s ear.  _ “Oh, Honey-bee. How did they get you so wrong?”  _ His arms slide around Connor, under his hips and into his hair and around his shoulders and between his legs, and lift him just enough to press his shaking body against the cold, clammy plane of Caduceus’s chest.

“You’re- You’re-“ Connor stutters. He can’t be here. He’s dead. He died. Connor watched him die. 

_ “Do you miss me, sweetness? I miss you. I’ve been looking for you for weeks now, ever since-”  _

“Connor, wake up,” Rich says, low and urgent, shaking his shoulder. 

Connor rolls over and coughs out a mouthful of bile onto the floor. “Fuck.  _ Fuck,”  _ he rasps. 

“Are you okay? You were choking.” He sounds close to panic, voice tight, with a rough growl laced through it that would be terrifying from anyone else. 

“Yeah,” Connor says. He breathes slowly in and coughs it out. “Yeah, just a bad dream. Shit. I’ll clean that up. Sorry.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

Connor considers it for all of three milliseconds. “I’ve already forgotten most of it,” he lies. Like hell he’s telling anyone on this boat about Caduceus, especially Rich. No one needs that kind of poison in his life. Connor will die before he lets anything from the  _ Synergy  _ follow him here.

Connor grabs the packet of wipes off the desk and cleans up his mess, quickly and efficiently in the low light. Rich has the lights on half brightness, just bright enough to see what he’s doing without giving him a headache. Everyone here keeps everything so well lit, like they  _ want  _ to see their filthy bulkheads and unwashed decks. Not that anything on the  _ Reliant  _ is unwashed. It’s all unnaturally clean, actually, and gleams like someone cares about it every single day, not just during inspections. 

“Does that happen a lot?” Rich asks. 

Connor is already back in bed, pressed in close. He’s on his side and has dragged Rich’s arm around him to hold him still. How did he end up on his back, anyway? He’s never been the type to toss and turn. “I have a messed up stomach. Don’t worry about it.” 

“What happened?” Rich asks. 

“Nothing. Genetic defect.” 

Rich gives him a squeeze and says “Okay,” in that awful, way too understanding, you-don’t-have-to-tell-me-but-I’m-here-if-you-want-to sort of voice. It makes Connor’s teeth ache with sweetness. 

Connor is sick to the core of that voice, so he keeps his eyes closed and pretends to be asleep. After a few seconds of waiting, Rich turns the lights off and joins him. 

* * *

Connor’s implants ring right on time and he answers after a few seconds of making sure he looks presentable. Hole-free shirt that fits, hair back and neat, makeup freshly done and not a smudgy mess, and fuck the rest of it. The desk he’s sitting at blocks everything below the waist anyway. He could be naked and playing with himself down there for all his caseworker will see. 

He answers the call and plasters a smile on his face. “Good morning, Ms Travis. How are you today?” 

“Doing very well, Mr. Hess. It’s good to see you awake and dressed this time,” she says like a joke.

Connor forces himself not to flinch when he’s reminded that she has, in fact, very briefly seen him naked. He’d been halfway through detox, sick and asleep, and not really thinking when he answered the video. “They like wearing clothes here. I’m doing my best to fit in.” 

“Big changes from your last ship?” she asks, friendly as anything, like she’s not fishing for information. 

“Depends on where you went. The  _ Synergy  _ was relatively  _ free love,  _ if you catch my meaning. Parts of it were clothing optional.” That wasn’t a secret. She already knows how many infections he had to get cleaned out before he was fit for the general public again. 

“I see. Well, I’m glad you’re adjusting to your local culture so quickly. I know it can be difficult when your entire life changes suddenly like this.” 

“It’s been a good change, overall. I’m enjoying it.” 

“I’m glad.” 

“I am too.” Connor smiles. 

Ms Travis smiles back, waiting for him to get uncomfortable and volunteer more information. She has no idea who Connor is and what his life has been like, if she thinks an awkward silence is going to be enough to break him. He keeps smiling blankly, like he’s just pleased as punch to be sitting here on a silent video call doing nothing but staring at her face. 

She breaks the silence first. “I do have one thing I’d like to ask you about.” 

“Go ahead.” 

“I’ve noticed you haven’t been taking an active interest in your videos and homework questions.” 

“Do you mean the children’s television show I’ve been assigned to watch?” he asks politely. 

“Your assignments are spaced in such a way that a dedicated student could finish them and be off probation in a month. At the rate you’re progressing, you won’t be finished for at least six months, possibly more if it’s decided you need additional assignments.” 

“If  _ you  _ decide I need to watch more cartoons aimed at the three to ten age range,” he corrects her. 

“Mr. Hess, the language we use to describe our situations affects how we’re able to think about and approach them,” she starts. 

“I have a question for you, Ms Travis,” he interrupts her. 

“Go ahead.” 

“Do I look like a child to you?” 

Her lips thin and she doesn’t answer for a second. It’s a tricky question, because Connor was specifically built to be eternally young. He finished growing at 11 years old and has purposely stopped himself from filling out into an adult weight and build. He doesn’t exactly look like a baseline adult, and he wants to see how she reacts. 

“Connor, I respect that you’re a 24 year old adult, no matter what your genetic makeup or expression. I also understand that you’ve come from a situation where conversations were combative and used to attack your shipmates, rather than communicate and try to find common ground. I would like it if you could understand that I’m not here to fight you, and that I’m not going to rise to the challenge you’ve presented here.” 

Connor snorts. 

“Now, as always, not knowing or not being comfortable answering are valid responses. Is there a reason you’ve only watched three videos this week?” 

“It’s possible that I’m just too busy for them. New job and all. You understand. It’s also possible that it’s insulting as hell to watch baby’s first social skills vid as an adult who already has at least a basic understanding of how to relate to my fellow human beings,” Connor snaps, a lot less politely than he’d intended.

Ms Travis nods. “I understand that criticism of the method, but, to be transparent, your most recent assessment indicates that there are several holes in your understanding of how healthy human beings relate to one another.” 

“So you think I need to learn how to share my toys and hug my friends?” Connor snips. 

One corner of Ms Travis’s mouth turns up in a half smile. “Bluntly put, I think you need to learn when it’s  _ appropriate  _ to share and hug, and when it’s not.” 

“Sure. And the puppets are going to teach me that.” 

“They can, if you give them a chance and watch them with nuance and depth.” 

“They’re  _ puppets.  _ What nuance could they possibly have?” 

Ms Travis smiles. “Family Fleet is for everyone!” she says cheerfully. “There are also three secret phalluses in episode 18,” she adds. 

“They snuck a  _ dick  _ into Family Fleet?” Connor asks with half a laugh. 

“Snuck nothing! The show runners put them there on purpose.”

“You’re fucking with me.” 

“I’m really not. There are nods to the adult applications of the subject matter like that in almost every episode. Not all of them are that overt, but you can find them if you look. Family Fleet is intended to be a resource for anyone struggling with human relations, not just children. The method is proven to work, Connor. It has an overwhelming success rate with cases like yours.” 

“Cases like mine?” he asks mildly, waiting for a chance to strike. He’s not some pathetic victim. He’s not going to let her get away with babying him. 

Ms Travis sighs. “Normally this would be the part where I reassure a patient that there’s nothing wrong with them and that they have a bright future, but you’ve proven repeatedly that you don’t appreciate a light touch. So, blunt. You do have a bright future if you can finish your assignments, but you’ve been through years of trauma, and it’s important to recognize that so you can move forward with an awareness of yourself and the world around you. I don't think you’re broken, and I definitely don’t think you’re beyond help, but it’s clear just from talking to you that your reactions and expectations are still tuned to a situation of extreme stress and violence, and that simply isn’t your reality anymore. It’s going to take work to recalibrate your internal compass to your new bearings. I’m here to help you with that work, but you have to be willing to put in the effort as well.” 

“Thank you for your honesty,” Connor grumbles sarcastically, for lack of anything better to say. 

“Do your homework, Mr. Hess. I know it’s not exactly targeted toward your age range, but it does help.” 

“You’re not getting  _ frustrated,  _ are you, Ms Travis?” 

“Would you be proud of yourself if I were?” she asks, unusually cutting. 

“Maybe,” he grins. “What happens if I don’t do my homework? Do you kick me out of the fleet?” 

“Not immediately, but if you don’t do your videos, you stay on probation. The longer it takes, the more time you have to make mistakes that  _ can  _ end in negative consequences. In the last week you have one missed shift and two instances of drug seeking behaviors. None of those have gone on record yet, but they were brought to my attention, and I am aware of potential problems.”

“Asking for painkillers when your back hurts isn’t illegal,” Connor says. He knows that. It’s a legal fact he’s intimately familiar with. 

“Asking for them when there’s no evidence of back pain, and when you have a history of addiction and drug abuse, raises a red flag in your records that can make it harder for you to get necessary medical care when you do need it,” Ms Travis says oh so reasonably. 

“Right,” Connor mutters. 

“I’m not saying this to be mean to you, Mr. Hess, but you need to understand that your actions are being monitored and recorded. The sooner you’re off parole, the sooner those little indiscretions stop following you.”

“So it’s in my best interest to watch as much children’s television as I can, as fast as I can?” Connor asks sarcastically.

“That’s one way to look at it, yes. Another way would be to see that you have a variety of tools at your disposal, and that there’s no reason to muddle through trying to fix everything with your bare hands when they’re ready and waiting for you,” she says, pitch perfect polite. 

Connor isn’t going to respond to that. He’s not broken, and he doesn’t need tools to fix himself. Ms Travis isn’t getting any more out of him this conversation. He stares through his screen at the blank bulkhead behind her and tries to empty his mind of everything he wants to yell at her. It would be so satisfying to explode, to figure out exactly how far is too far and hurtle past that line like an Olympic long jumper. It’s all ammunition in her belt, though. She has all the power here, and there’s nothing he can do to change that. 

“Is there anything else you want to talk about today?” Ms Travis asks when he’s been silent for longer than is comfortable. 

“No,” he says without inflection. 

“Alright. Have a good week, Mr. Hess. I’ll talk to you again next Friday, same time. As always, you're welcome to call me if you feel you need more support in the meantime.”

“Alright.”

They stare at each other for another few seconds before she sighs and ends the call with a gesture. Connor stays staring at the wall for a minute after she’s gone, then falls off his chair and into bed. 

“Fuck. That could have gone worse, I guess,” he says to no one. 


	5. Chapter 5

“Rich, I think I fucked up,” Connor says, and collapses in the doorway.

* * *

Three people are sick, Connor, and Trimmer, and one of Connor’s friends from off ship who no one has a name on and who isn’t supposed to be in the  _ Reliant  _ right now. He doesn't have an ID and he didn’t sign in when he docked his hover bike. All three are unconscious with high fevers in the med bay. Rich is waiting with them, because he had physical contact with the patients and is under quarantine until they get this figured out. 

Bec is hanging out with him, too. They’re a med-tech and had the bad luck of laying hands on Connor and Trimmer before anyone realized how sick they were and how fast this could spread. They’ve been fun so far, not bad company. The last couple of hours have been Rich and them comparing STD horror stories, Rich’s up close and personal accounts from the Sympatico, Bec’s from the time syphilis swept through the ship and no one realized until almost everyone was infected. That was just before Rich interned, it turns out. Apparently the last captain had been known to throw orgies on special occasions and invite friends from other ships. 

“So who do you think he is?” Bec asks, nodding to the stranger lying unconscious on a gurney. He’s on the younger side, no gray in his ash blond hair, but smile lines around his eyes and mouth, and dressed anonymously in black jeans and a plain white shirt. 

“He was at the Spellcraft tournament a couple weeks ago, but I didn’t catch his name. I think he’s one of either Nate’s or Anton’s friends,” Rich says. “We were in different preliminaries and I got knocked out in the first round.”

“Shite. This might have been incubating for weeks if they picked it up there,” Bec says. “Who knows how far it spread.” 

Rich shakes his head. “They’re the only three with symptoms so far, and they were all together in Connor’s berth this morning. I think it’s a new thing. Maybe bad snacks? Rotten drinks?” 

“Maybe. I hope so. I’ve got a date tonight, and if I have to get packed off to a med-ship I’m going to be  _ so  _ pissed.” 

Rich’s implants chime with Liam’s call tone and he has to seriously think about whether or not he wants to answer. On the one hand, Rich doesn’t look great and has no way of looking better anytime soon. On the other, he’s overdue to call Liam and doesn’t want to make him worry, too. He decides to let it ring out. He’s busy. He’s nervey. He’s stuck in a public place for the foreseeable future. They can do this some other time. 

As soon as the call drops, the same tone sounds again. Two calls right in a row means emergency, so Rich answers, even though he’s sort of dealing with his own small scale emergency. “Hey hot stu- uh.” he starts, then stops. 

Liam on screen is wearing a hazmat suit, complete with respirator, walking fast and typing as he goes. “Hello hon. Having a good day?” 

“Not… really. Is everything okay?” 

_ “Not really,”  _ Liam echoes him. “I got a call two hours ago that there’s a mysterious illness on the  _ Reliant,  _ and that patient zero is our friend Connor Hess, who is not supposed to have any kind of off-ship contact. Since then I’ve been briefed that there are four other victims, including  _ you _ , so I’m understandably having  _ not the best day of my life.”  _ His voice is muffled through the respirator, but still comes across sharp and displeased. 

“I, uh. I don’t have any symptoms yet. If that helps?” Rich tries. 

“It does. Immensely,” Liam grits out. 

“Do you know what’s going on?” 

Liam turns a corner and speeds up. “I have an educated guess and will know for sure in roughly five minutes, as soon as Officer Ford lets me search Connor’s room. Say hello, Officer Ford.” 

He turns the screen and Mitch, also wearing a respirator and gloves, waves. “Hi Rich.” 

“Hi Mitch.” 

“Cici will be collecting samples from the four of you soon, just to be thorough.” 

“Five, actually,” Rich corrects. “A medic was… uh…” 

“Compromised,” Bec supplies from his shoulder. 

“Right. They touched patient zero and now we’re hanging out in quarantine. Neither of us feels bad or anything yet. It’s been about two hours.” 

“Thank you, honey. That helps narrow down what’s going on.” 

“Are they going to be okay?” 

“That depends  _ entirely  _ on what I find in Connor’s room,” Liam says venomously. 

“Shit,” Rich mutters. 

“He’ll live, almost certainly. Whether or not he survives what  _ I  _ do to him afterwards…” 

“Liam, settle. Whatever it is, it didn’t get far. He didn’t mean any harm.” Rich tries to be the voice of reason. Sometimes Liam gets a little too far into his own head and blows things out of proportion. It’s not his fault, but it also doesn’t help anything. 

Liam gives him a look that doesn’t entirely translate around the visor and mask. 

“This is him,” Mitch says next to him, flashing a key-card to override Connor’s door. 

“I have to go. Cooperate with Cecilia. And remember, none of this is your fault.” 

Rich blinks at him. “I have no idea what’s going on right now.” 

“Exactly. Keep that in mind.” Liam hangs up, leaving Rich more confused than ever. 

“Do you know what’s happening?” he asks Bec. 

They’re examining Trimmer again. They can’t get any more compromised, so they might as well do their job, Rich supposes. They pull his eyelid up and shine a penlight in to see how it dilates, grimace, and sit back down. “I’m starting to get an idea, if Beaker is looking in his bunk before anything else.” 

“What?” 

“It’s classified. You might find out soon, though. I can’t tell you, but if you’re involved now, you’ll probably find out in a bit.” 

“Okay.” If no one wants to explain anything, Rich isn’t going to keep asking. Something about Connor. Probably something bad, if it’s classified. Rich didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to have contact outside the ship. He was aware he wasn’t allowed to leave, but if he had known how isolated he was supposed to be he probably wouldn’t have taken him to the Spellcraft after-party. Rich doesn’t agree with isolating anyone, but he knows better than to interfere with the terms of anyone’s parole. 

“This is just a shit situation, isn’t it?” he asks. 

“Kind of, yeah,” Bec agrees. They sit in their chair and pull up a screen to do arcane medical things. 

A few minutes later,  _ Genesis's  _ latest intern, Cici, is there to scrape cells and spit off of everyone’s tongue and into vials. The two awake patients go first, and she has canisters of water for both of them when they’re done. 

Trimmer wakes up and struggles out of her grip while she’s holding his mouth open, spitting curses. His eyes are rolling and he collapses again as soon as nothing is holding him upright, off the edge of the gurney in a heap. Rich catches him out of the air and holds him steady against a shoulder. “Settle, monkey. She’s not gonna hurt you.” 

“Fuckin’ ass givin’ me a fuckin’ fake ass fake of whatever the fuckin’ ass… Merrill?” He focuses just enough to track who’s holding him. “Merrill. What the fuck. Your boy toy’s an  _ ass _ .” 

“I know.” Rich doesn’t know, actually. He has no idea what’s going on. “I know. It’s okay. She’s almost done.” 

He’s already unconscious again, lolling in Rich’s grip. Cecelia gets the sample and packages it in a little plastic container. A cold sweat starts up on the small of Rich’s back. They got cleared for single-use plastics. This is a lot more serious than he thought. He sits down and hangs onto Trimmer, just to have something solid in his hands. 

Connor and the third guy don’t regain consciousness, even when Cici takes a blood sample from everyone’s finger. Those go in glass vials, thankfully. 

“Thanks, honey,” she says, squeezing Rich’s arm after he’s done holding everyone’s hands still for her. The lancet takes one hand, the vial takes another, and she doesn’t have the coordination yet to juggle more than that. 

“Yeah,” Rich says. “ _ You  _ don’t know what’s going on, do you?” He figures he may as well try. 

“Not worth my job to spill the beans, even if I did. It’s almost definitely not lethal, though,” she says. 

“Right. Thanks.” 

“Liam will call when it’s safe to leave.” 

* * *

It’s only another twenty minutes, but it feels like hours before anything else happens. Rich sits, holding Trimmer and focusing on concrete things, not what might happen if they’re wrong, if they’re right, if they’re sick. Rich’s body handles fevers well, but he knows that Trimmer’s doesn’t. His metabolism is so efficient, and he’s built to run so cool, that any kind of fever spikes him through the ceiling and threatens his life. Rich genuinely doesn’t know what to do for him. They don’t know what’s causing this, so they can’t treat it. Rich tries not to pay attention to that, or to what happens to babydoll bodies when they heat up. He has no idea, is the problem, and not knowing is killing him. 

He doesn’t even know if they’re sick. If they were, wouldn’t they have passed it to him by now? Trimmer got on ship an hour and a half before Connor collapsed and Rich found the rest of them in Connor’s berth, unconscious on the bunk. If it traveled that quickly, he would definitely have some symptoms by now. 

This is nothing, just an over reaction, probably not even communicable. It doesn’t make sense for it to be anything else. Rich runs his hand through Trimmer’s hair and down his back in an old, familiar pattern and forces himself not to think about what might happen. 

Then two more medics come in, no hazmat suits or even respirators on, and get to work. They lift Trimmer out of his arms and back onto the cot, then do a lot of unfamiliar medical stuff with IVs in his arm and tubes in his nose and throat. 

“What’s going on?” Rich asks. 

“Engineer Beaker gave the all clear. Nothing transferable. These three geniuses just poisoned themselves,” one of them, a larger than average guy with dark skin and tidy braids says. Rich doesn’t know him beyond passing recognition from the mess hall, but he has a soothing voice and is fast and professional with the tubes. 

They drag in machines to hook up to Trimmer and Connor, start them running, and give the third guy an IV. “Maybe now Raoul will finally sign off on a third pump,” Bec grumbles, sitting with a screen open to monitor him. 

“We’re honestly lucky to have two,” the guy with the braids comments. 

“At least they both work.” 

Liam calls back while Rich is watching the organized chaos of medical with a mission. He’s out of the hazmat suit and looks  _ furious.  _

“You okay?” Rich asks. 

“No. I am not. I will be there in thirty minutes, as soon as I can get this  _ shit  _ in evidence bags. If any of them wake up in that time, you are to hold them there for questioning. Sit on them if you have to. I don’t care what medical or security or the  _ goddamn Admiral herself  _ has to say about it. None of those  _ unrepentant shitheads  _ are going anywhere.” 

“What?” Rich asks. 

Liam hangs up and doesn’t answer when Rich calls him back, even when he calls him twice. 

“First time working with Beaker?” the guy with the braids asks. He’s looking at Rich with a mix of amusement and pity. 

“N-no, actually,” Rich says. 

“Huh. Guess you’ve never caught him on a bad day, then.” 

Rich really doesn’t know how to answer that. He thought he knew Liam pretty well, after knowing him for more than a year, after all but living in his ship for three weeks last storm season, after finally learning how to tell good fruit from great fruit under his diligent tutelage, but maybe he was wrong. He’s never seen him this angry for this long before. Rich resigns himself to sit quietly and wait for anyone to wake up. 


	6. Chapter 6

Whatever the machines were doing to Connor, they’re done, and now he’s lying with an IV, breathing slowly like he’s just asleep. Trimmer finished up a couple minutes after him, and Rich has been holding his unconscious hand since then. Both of them are unpleasantly pale and sick looking, but Bec says their vitals are normal. The third guy is hooked up now, and Bec is monitoring him closely. At some point Mitch and Hayden, the two security on shift, come back and sit to keep an eye on the unconscious patients, but no one mentions what they’re there for and Rich is unsettled enough that he doesn’t want to question them. 

Liam storms in in a swirl of blue-green hair, white coat, and furious hissing. If humans could breathe fire, he would be melting the bulkheads. He marches straight past Rich to the cot where Connor is quiet and still, grabs a fistfull of his long, dark hair, and punches him in the stomach. 

“Wake up you junkie piece of shit!” Liam shrieks. 

“Aah!” 

“Holy  _ shit!”  _ Mitch grabs Liam from behind, hooks his elbows under Liam’s armpits, and hauls him off of Connor. Liam keeps his grip and drags Connor’s head up with him, spitting and screaming. 

“I’m going to  _ fucking kill you!”  _

“Help! Help! Rich! Help me!” Connor screams. 

“Leave him out of this!” 

“Let go.” Hayden grabs Liam’s wrist and twists it to release his grip on Connor’s hair. 

“Put me down! Let go of me  _ this instant!”  _ Liam screeches like he expects to be obeyed, kicking and fighting. 

Hayden and Mitch move quickly, like a practiced maneuver, and in less than a second they have the two tiny men separated, Connor back in his bed shrieking and holding the side of his head, Liam on his front on the deck with his arm twisted behind his back and Mitch kneeling with a knee between his shoulder blades. Liam shouts and struggles, but as goofy as Mitch is, he’s still a trained officer and holds his 90 pounds of unfocused fury down easily. 

It takes Rich a second to realize he’s moving. He has Trimmer in his arms and is backing up, slowly, not a threat, not a target, into the corner. Something moves to follow him and he almost bolts, but it’s just the IV tree, trailing after Trimmer on wheels. Rich keeps his eyes on the officers, their batons - not in their hands yet. Not yet. 

“Rich?” The smaller officer asks, looking up from the body on the ground. “Rich, it’s okay. Just sit down. We’re not going to hurt him.” 

Rich sits automatically. Quick compliance. No reason to bring out the clubs. A tiny, distant part of himself is saying that this is Mitch, Officer Mittens, who taught him how to pick up day old kittens without hurting them. He shoves that voice away and centers his mind on where the threats are, how close, how likely he is to end up unconscious and in pain, moment to moment.

He feels dizzy. Is he breathing? He can’t tell. There’s a low, rattling growl coming from somewhere. It’s getting harder to focus. There are more voices, talking over and around him. 

“Okay. That’s… happening.” 

“Connor, stop screaming.” 

“He  _ assaulted me!”  _

“Yes, he did. Now stop screaming and show me where he hit you.” 

_ “Don’t touch me!”  _

“Are you done?” 

“I. I believe so. Let me up, please.” 

“If you touch him again I’m cuffing you.” 

“Understood.” 

“Easy does it. Are you hurt?” 

“Does anyone care that he  _ FUCKING ASSAULTED ME?!”  _

“Connor, shut your idiot mouth for  _ ten seconds _ .” 

Tiny, soft hands are touching Rich’s face. He flinches away, waiting for pain that never comes. Those same soft, cool hands come to rest, one on his shoulder, one on the back of his neck. 

“Rich. Rich, hon, breathe for me. In and out, nice and slow,” Liam says quietly. 

Rich breathes. In and out. Nice and slow. The growling quiets and his head stops spinning.

“There we go. Just breathe with me for a second. It’s going to be okay.” 

It takes a long few seconds before Rich feels like he has control of himself. Halfway there, he realizes Trimmer is clinging to him as hard as Rich is holding him and hitches him higher onto his shoulder, away from danger. Danger that isn’t actually dangerous. Trimmer goes willingly, climbing onto his shoulders and hiding behind him as well as he can. 

Another few breaths and Rich finds his voice. “So. You know Connor?” he rasps. 

Liam cracks a thin smile. “You mean you don’t see the family resemblance?”

Rich looks between them, trying to categorize features with his heart pounding and his head spinning. 

“Meet my little brother,” Liam says. “Connor is the family disappointment.” 

“Oh  _ fuck off,”  _ Connor squawks. “Mom never wanted you in the first place!” 

Liam turns around and glares over his shoulder. “This is  _ not the time,  _ Corncob. Or did you forget that our friends have a well-earned fear of security?” 

“You started it,  _ Lilypad _ ,” Connor grumbles. 

“Mr. Trimmer. Joseph.” Liam gets Trimmer’s attention, touching his foot lightly. “Do you have any of your medication on hand? We can synthesize a dose if you need it.” 

“Shit,” Trimmer mutters. “Shit, yeah. One second. Can you…” he gestures for Liam to back off, gets what he asked for, and climbs down into Rich’s lap. His little wax paper packet with his emergency dose is in his back pocket. He takes it dry and gives himself a second to breathe slowly and let it kick in. Rich holds onto him while that happens. 

Mitch is moving closer, slowly. His hands are up, away from his baton - baton hook. His baton is on the floor next to the gurneys. He’s unarmed. “You okay, Rich?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.” 

“Do you think you can give a statement? Citizen witness to an assault, and everything,” Mitch asks gently and a little awkwardly, like he hasn’t practiced this. 

“I can manage that.” Rich isn’t shaking as much anymore.   
“Out in the hall with me, please.” 

Rich starts to get up, and Trimmer scrambles back into his usual place on his shoulder, clinging to his elbow and shirt with his feet. “Oh. Can we, uh.” 

“He can come with you. I need the details of what he saw too.” Mitch looks down at Liam. “Hayden is going to take your statement, yours and Connor’s. Don’t touch each other. Don’t talk to each other. Next one who lays a hand on the other gets cuffed to a chair. Sorry, Rich,” he adds. 

A spike of ice has lodged itself in the back of Rich’s head, but his mouth says “It’s alright,” and his feet follow Mitch, unarmed, kittens, out into the hall with Trimmer. 

Mitch sits with his back against one bulkhead and Rich slides down the opposite, like they just got done with a particularly aggressive round of assassins and are taking a second to catch their breath. 

“Are you okay with me recording you? I think that will go fastest,” Mitch asks. 

“Who’s… who’s going to see it?” Rich asks. He’s been a disaster all day, and being a hot mess in an evidence video sounds upsetting for reasons he can’t articulate. 

“We’re showing their mom!” Mitch jokes, and Rich barks a short, startled laugh. “Real talk, Chief Appleton and Raoul will both watch it, and then it’ll stay in evidence until punishments are assigned and carried out. After that I think it goes into long-term storage until Liam dies or leaves the fleet.” 

“What happens to him after this?” Is Rich’s next question. He doesn’t want to throw Liam under the trawler, but he doesn’t know what else to do. Refuse to testify? Two officers saw it, and it was on camera. That’s more than enough evidence to bring the hammer down on anyone as hard as they want. 

“It depends on a few things, mostly how hard he hit Connor and if he bruises or not. Nothing's broken and there’s no blood, so he’s not getting dinged for grand assault. If it’s minor assault, if Connor has a physical mark to show for it, Liam will probably have to do some community service or something and get a red mark on his record. No bruise, petty assault, he gets a black mark and his pay gets docked this week. Either way, Liam isn’t getting dropped off on shore over this. He’ll be fine, and the demerits will roll off in a couple years.” 

Right. Of course. That’s how infractions work in the sane parts of the fleet, where the punishment fits the crime and no one has it out for anyone’s life or career. Rich nods. He can do this. He cards his fingers through his hair to try to get it all going the same direction, at least. Connor found him fresh out of the shower and he hadn’t had a chance to comb his hair dry yet, so after almost three hours of uncontrolled drying it’s all sticking up in every direction. 

“I can take a still and do a voice recording,” Mitch offers. 

“Please?” 

“Okay, everyone look at me. Joey, middle fingers down, please.  _ All of them.  _ C’mon man, I have to show this to my boss. Alright. That looks pretty good.” He minimizes one screen and opens a new one. A red light the size of Rich’s thumbnail starts blinking in one corner. “Eyewitness account of Richard Merrill,  _ Reliant  _ IST. Rich, in your own words, and in your own time, what happened today? Starting when Liam arrived.” 

It’s more relaxed than Rich is used to. No one interrupts to ask if he’s sure of what he’s saying or ask leading questions. There are no traps, no tricks, no trying to implicate him or Trimmer. Mitch lets him stumble his way through it with only the occasional “which he, Liam or Connor?” to clarify. He gets through it in a couple minutes with no real problems, even though his heart is pounding and his hands are numb. Trimmer goes next, and his testimony takes a bare thirty seconds. He woke up just in time to see Mitch pin Liam and wasn’t really processing until the screaming had already stopped. 

“And… saved. Thanks guys. Good job. Rich, you’re free to go. Joey, sorry man, but Chief Appleton is still figuring out if you guys did anything illegal and I need you to stay in custody for a little while longer. Custody can be the med bay if you want to keep lying down, or I can walk you down to the brig.” 

“Med bay’s fine. I wanna watch the drama feed,” Trimmer says, nodding to the door. There’s muffled yelling coming from the other side. 

“Am I good to stay, too?” Rich wants to know what the hell is going on. He’s been tossed around all morning like a canoe in a category 3 and feels like he deserves some kind of explanation. 

“Yeah, sure. You can help me wrangle Liam. That little guy scares me,” Mitch says. 

“Deal.” 

The med bay is barely controlled madness. Liam ended up handcuffed to a chair after all, one of the ones bolted to the deck for visitors, and is straining at the end of his short leash, pointing and shouting at the top of his lungs at Connor, who’s cuffed to the gurney, screaming back with impressive volume. 

“You should have been a stillborn!” Liam screams. 

“And you were supposed to be a blowjob!” Connor screeches back. 

“Listen here, you inbred, junkie piece of shit-” 

“Get off that! It’s not a dick and your oversized ass needs a break anyway!” 

“Oversized!” Liam makes a noise like a steam-whistle. Then he realizes who’s in the room with him and a sharp, cruel calm comes over his face. “Have you told Rich how you stay so lean and svelte, Corny?” 

“Don’t you fucking  _ dare,”  _ Connor hisses. 

_ “California cocktails,  _ just like mom used to make.” 

Rich looks between them. He has Trimmer back in bed, IV in place and a med tech checking him over for any further damage. “What’s. Uh. You’ve mentioned those before. What are they?” 

“Nothing!” 

Liam smiles darkly. “Two fingers, down the hatch.” 

“Two fingers… of what?” Rich doesn’t think he wants to know. What he’d really like is to go back to bed and have today be a bad dream, but he doesn’t think he’s going to get anything he wants at this point. 

Liam holds up two slender fingers and mimes putting them into his mouth, all the way back into his throat, and fakes gagging. 

“What?” 

“He’s lying!” Connor yells. 

“Are you making yourself throw up?” Rich asks, not believing he would ever have to ask it. Why would anyone do that? What’s the point of eating if you’re just going to dump it in the composter?

“He is!” Liam crows. 

“Why?” 

“Because Corny thinks he’s  _ fat,”  _ Liam sneers. “He’s a  _ vain little bitch _ who doesn’t think anyone is going to love him if they can’t see all of his pretty little ribs.” 

“You fucker!” Connor lunges off the bed and drags it six inches across the floor with him, toward Liam, clawing for his throat. Liam shrieks a laugh at him and backs off, out of his reach. “I”ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!” 

“Okay, no.” Hayden grabs Connor around the chest and holds him off the floor like a misbehaving child. 

Mitch steps between the fighting brothers, shoving Liam back into his chair as he goes. “I think we should separate them.” 

“Think so?” Hayden asks sarcastically. Connor is twisting in his grip, screeching mindless threats. Hayden bundles him back into bed and holds him down while Mitch uncuffs Liam from the chair, recuffs him with his arms behind his back, and muscles him smoothly and calmly out of the med bay. 

When Rich catches his breath and looks at Trimmer again, he has a screen open and is recording everything, grinning with manic glee. 

“You okay?” 

“I genuinely don’t fucking care if I get arrested at this point. Watching two tiny tweaks at each other's throats was worth the misdemeanor. Can we do this every week?” Trimmer asks. It’s almost definitely the anti anxiety talking, but Rich still palms his head and shoves it to one side. 

“As much fun as it would be to watch them kill each other, think I’m gonna pass. Go visit your family if you want miniature violence.” 

“Y’know, fair.” 

“What are you getting arrested for, anyway?” 

Trimmer eyes Hayden. “Nothing anyone can prove. I’ll tell you later if you really want to know.” 

Hayden rolls his eyes. “Chill. You’re probably not even in trouble. Appleton just needs to check the laws surrounding failed attempts at making drugs.” 

“Who was making drugs?” Trimmer asks. 

“No one, evidently. You three idiots just decided to get together this morning and eat fermented garbage, for no reason except scientific curiosity,” Hayden says. 

“Damn straight!” Trimmer says. 

Connor is sitting quietly, lips locked tight and face flat and impassive in an expression of trying not to react and implicate himself. He’s looking at the wall across from him, not struggling anymore, but Hayden doesn’t uncuff him. 

“I’m still wildly unclear on what’s going on, for the record,” Rich says. 

Hayden laughs. “Lucky. You have plausible deniability.” 

“Please, man. Just tell me why they made themselves sick.” 

“Alright. You’re involved with these brainless assholes enough that I guess it won’t hurt, and I’ve been dying to tell someone about this monumental fuck-up all morning. There’s a way to make some really cheap, gross psychoactive drugs by fermenting a specific kind of plastic with the wrong enzyme. Right now we have a recovering addict,” he points to Connor, “the owner of a one-man plastic recycler,” Trimmer, “and an unknown third party we’re still waiting on a facial recognition match from,” he points to the guy still hooked up to the machines, “who all ate some toxic fermented plastic byproduct this morning, ten cubic centimeters of which was found hidden in Connor’s berth. My totally unofficial, off the books guess is that they  _ completely  _ fucked up the brewing process and managed to make a box of incorrectly-recycled garbage instead of a personal use batch of class three narcotics.” 

“...What?” Rich feels hollow. Class three narcotics are a serious offense, and Connor’s on  _ parole _ . He could be kicked out of the fleet for this. Connor is still wearing that blank, unconcerned expression. He has to realize how big a deal this is. Does he not understand how badly he fucked up?

“Yeah, but no one actually made or took anything illegal. Right now there’s a lot of really frantic research going on in the Chief’s office to see if gross incompetence is a crime or if these fools get off with a slap on the wrist for mishandling of materials. My bet is wrist slap. No one on board  _ wants  _ to arrest them for being dumb as bricks, but we have to follow the letter of the law.” 

“O… okay.” Rich can believe that, probably. The  _ Reliant  _ is crazy relaxed about minor fuck ups. He probably should have spent at least an extra two weeks on the fleet’s shit list for everything he accidentally did while on parole. Several days drunk on duty come to mind, as well as a couple cases of AWOL, and at least one sexual-assault-if-you-squint. No one reported any of it, and it had ended up being a non-issue. If Hurricane Liam hadn’t happened, Rich doubts he would know any of them tried anything at all. 

“Like I said, I have no idea what these two were trying to do. I was invited over to hang out this morning. That’s it,” Trimmer says. 

“Hang out and eat garbage,” Hayden adds sarcastically. 

“I can’t explain what the kids are into these days. Maybe it’s a fad. Maybe it’ll catch on,” he snaps back. 

“Trimmer, just… stop,” Rich says. “Wait to see if you’re actually in the shit before you try to talk your way out of it.”

Trimmer opens his mouth to argue, or maybe just bitch Rich out, but shuts it again when he sees the look on his face. “Sorry.”

Connor has lain down on his side again and has his eyes closed. He might be feigning sleep, or poisoning yourself might just be that tiring. Whatever’s going on with him, it’s clear he’s not in the mood to talk about what happened, or what Liam said, and  _ fuck  _ did he have a lot to say. Rich is still processing most of it, organizing it all into neat tables in his head to look at bit by bit when he has time. 

They have a lot to talk about. 


	7. Chapter 7

Connor gets a call from his brother while he’s in the middle of going down on Basil, then a second call when the first one rings out, then a third because Liam genuinely can’t take a fucking hint. He’s still sucking his bunk-buddy off and just getting to the fun part, where Basil gets delightfully breathy and keeps gasping his name, so he answers and makes sure the screen is angled down so Liam can see exactly what’s going on. 

_ “Jesus fucking CHRIST Corny, you could have just said you were busy,”  _ he yelps, and hangs up. 

“Was that Liam?” Basil asks, muzzy and unfocused. 

“It’s a  _ very  _ long story,” Rich says from behind him. 

* * *

They finish up fast and Connor makes his way back to his own berth for the night. Basil doesn’t like sleeping with him much, something about wanting time alone with his boyfriend. Rich is about ten degrees warmer, but he always wants to talk about things, how he can help, if his drinking is a problem, if Connor needs more support, and it always comes back to what happened on his last ship to give him these kinds of problems. 

Thinking too deeply about anything from before a month ago still makes Connor feel like he’s going to puke, so he practices his smiling and nodding and deflects as hard as he can. “Please respect my boundaries,” is the new magic phrase that’s replaced “ask again and I’ll bite your dick off,” and he makes liberal use of it. It doesn’t last as long, but it works the same every time, no need to enforce beyond asking politely. 

He fucked up royally a week ago, with the badly fermented kingslayer, and nearly lost everything. Fucking around with a botched recycling experiment in his living quarters isn’t illegal, no matter what the goal was, so he hasn’t been shipped out, but he has to talk to his caseworker daily now while he works his way through the  _ Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds  _ extended animated miniseries and answers questions like “Do you feel your drug use has prevented you from reaching your full potential?” and “Can you recall a moment or series of moments where you realized how your drug use was negatively affecting you?” 

It’s getting harder to maintain the fiction he built for them during detox, the one where everything was forced on him and he didn’t want any of it. They’re putting the pieces together now, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can keep this lie going. They know about Rich, somehow, and how comfortable he is being used by someone, as long as they’re friendly and not after his blood during daylight hours. Connor privately suspects Basil told Mitch told Ben and it got back to Ms. Travis that way. He comes off as a jealous hoe, when he’s not playing up the friendly vibes. Some of his homework questions have been uncomfortably close to reality. “Have you ever exchanged sexual favors for goods or services?” 

The good parts feel like being with Caduceus again, when everything was easy and all he had to do was lie back and let it happen. Cravings never lasted long, once he learned the right ways to beg, and the only times he had to come all the way down were those rare shifts he actually worked, when he slipped up trading or needed legal, squeaky clean credits for something. 

It’s honestly nothing like that, except for the fact that he’s not miserable. He’s sober constantly, except when someone feels like sharing booze, is fully dressed almost every day, works a real job regularly, and is riding the same dick more than one night a week. He also doesn’t get to leave the ship for anything short of an emergency, and now they’re actually keeping track of whether or not he has visitors from outside. That much, having his movements tracked, feels familiar the wrong way around, and it makes him twitchy.

Thinking about Caduceus so much is making him uncomfortable and horny and uncomfortably horny, but there’s nothing in his stomach for him to get rid of and his dick has given up for the night. Palming at it isn’t doing anything but making Connor frustrated, so he puts it away and does his best to put those three horrible, wonderful years away in the back of his mind. He’s in a new ship. He’s with Rich now. Things are better, less wild, quieter. 

Except for the god damn ringing in his implants. 

“What do you want?” he snaps. 

“Wearing clothes this time. Good to see  _ some  _ improvement,” Liam snarks. 

“I don’t need this tonight, Lilypad.”

“Rough night?” 

“Fantastic, actually. Thank you for ruining it. You were  _ exactly  _ who I wanted to see before I went to sleep.” 

“Corny,” he starts, angry, then takes a deep breath. “Connor. Can we talk?” 

“I don’t know, can we?” 

“I hope so. I called to apologize, and that’s going to be hard if all we do is yell at each other.” 

“So apologize, you fat, ugly bitch,” Connor grumbles. 

Liam has to take another deep breath and let it out slowly. He’s been working on his emotional management toolbox, it looks like. Conner wonders if he watched the vids again, or if he’s just been doing his daily introspection and meditation. “I crossed a line,” Liam says. “I shouldn’t have told Rich that you have a difficult relationship with food, and I definitely shouldn’t have told him like that. He noticed you losing weight and called me a few days before I was on the  _ Reliant _ , and I… reacted.” 

“What’d you break?” 

“A lamp,” he admits. 

Connor raises an eyebrow.

“And the micro-freezer,” Liam sighs. 

“Poor Lilypad had to go without his shaved ice,” Connor teases. 

Liam snorts. “You’re kidding, right? I called a mechanic friend and had it fixed within the hour.” 

“Really, it only took an hour?” Connor says suggestively.

“Oh, no, we did  _ that  _ afterwards. That was on the order of closer to three or four hours. I admit I lost track a little. You know how it is when you’re  _ so  _ busy.” 

“Bitch.” 

“Brat.” 

They’re quiet for a moment. 

“It scares me to see you like this, Corncob. Healthy for you is 90 pounds. 100 would be better. What are you sitting at right now, 75? 80?” 

“No idea,” Connor lies. He weighed in at 73 pounds at his last drug test, two days ago, and hasn’t eaten much since then. He might be down a pound. 

“Please eat. No one thinks visible ribs are attractive. Forcing yourself to vomit and wasting food, even less so.” 

“Plenty of people like how Mom looks,” Connor mutters, mostly to himself

“Mom isn’t the world’s healthiest influence. Her fans aren’t either. I wish I had been able to get you away from her sooner. I’m sorry.” 

Connor isn’t looking at him. He doesn’t want to know what his brother’s open, raw pity looks like, not if he’s still carrying it after this long. “Fuck off. At least she  _ wanted  _ me.” 

“I know,” he says quietly, like that’s the root of the problem.

“And stop calling me inbred! Just because my dad had the same mods, the same strain,” Connor feels his face heat up. Fuck. He doesn’t have the bio background to talk in depth about his own family’s designer genes, and he’s getting into an argument with the  _ top genetic engineer in the fleet.  _ He’s a fucking idiot for starting this conversation and he doesn’t know how to bail out without looking even worse. 

“You’re right,” Liam sighs. “Just because your parents’ modified halves came from the same genetic stock, and two of their parents were identical clones, doesn’t mean they were related. It’s a low-hanging insult and I need to stop using it.” 

“Fucker. Stop being so understanding.” Connor snaps. 

Liam continues like he didn’t hear. “Honestly, I’m a little jealous of you. You actually look like you’re supposed to, not like an awkward mix of co-dominant genetics all trying to express at once.” 

“Is  _ that  _ what’s wrong with your face?” Connor asks sarcastically. 

“That and sun damage,” Liam quips back. “Unlike you, who is developing  _ wrinkles.”  _

“I am not! Shut up!” 

“I know you’re not yet, but hard drugs and extreme dieting  _ do  _ age you faster. A lot faster. If you don’t clean up and get your act together for any other reason, please, Corny, do it for your skin.” 

“I’m not on drugs,” Connor snaps. 

“So I guess I imagined the box of badly synthesized kingslayer cooking in your vents?” Liam deadpans. 

“That wasn’t-” 

“Or are you  _ really  _ in the habit of eating garbage now? Because that’s a completely different issue, and I can definitely make fun of you for that instead, if you’d rather.” 

Connor glares at the wall, away from the screen. He should hang up. He should block him, but Liam’s being  _ nice,  _ what passes for nice in their family, anyway, and not having a babydoll freak out or screaming match with him for once. 

“I’m  _ trying,  _ Lily. I’m trying  _ so fucking hard,”  _ Connor grits out. “You have no idea what it’s been like, what the last  _ three fucking years  _ have been like.” 

“I know.  _ I know.  _ It’s not your fault. None of this was your fault, but you have to take some  _ fucking responsibility  _ for yourself. I’m doing everything I can to keep you safe and in the fleet. Please, for  _ fucks sake _ , stop making this harder for me.” 

“Harder for you? What the fuck have you done, other than ignore me for a month and punch me as soon as you saw me again?” Connor yells. 

Liam stays horribly calm and quiet, breathing deeply and not rising to the challenge. “I pulled some strings and got you a spot on the  _ Reliant _ ,” he explains. “I pushed for aggressive decomp and a quick posting instead of letting you rot in rehab with those other junkies for three months. I  _ trusted  _ you when you said you didn’t ask for any of what happened and stuck my neck out for someone who was found naked, riddled with diseases, and half dead from overdose in a bed with four corpses and a mountain of tainted drugs. Do you have any idea what they thought of you?” 

Connor’s eyes narrow and he wills himself not to cry. 

_ “Do you?”  _ Liam asks. 

He swipes at his face with his shirt hem and sets his jaw. He’s not crying. He doesn’t care. Liam is a self aggrandizing rat bastard. That’s all he’s ever been. Connor is above that. He’s past that. They’re barely even family. 

“Of course you do, because they weren’t entirely wrong, were they?” 

“Shut. Up,” Connor says coldly. 

“I’m sorry, honey, but I can’t protect you from everything. At some point, something is going to have to be a wake up call. You can either clean up and get your head on straight, or you can keep going deeper until you drown. You know I’ll do everything I can for you, but there are some things _ I can’t do.”  _

“Really? The great Liam Beaker finally admits he isn’t all powerful?” Connor sneers. “What are the limits of your power, oh mighty god of engineering?” 

Liam blinks hard a few times. “I can’t bring you back if you die, stupid. So if you could stop trying to kill yourself I would really appreciate it.” He manages not to cry, but he can’t hide the way his voice cracks. 

“I’m not going to die, you drama queen.” 

Rage flashes across Liam’s face. He takes another deep breath and closes his eyes. “You were in a coma for two days,” he says quietly. “They were ten hours from pulling the plug. I called Mom. I tried to get in contact with Andrew. Corny, I was so scared.” 

“You called my fucking dad?” Fury rises in Connor’s chest. Liam had a call with his  _ dad  _ and Conor was in a coma for it. He missed it. And Liam didn’t even tell him. 

“Tried. His agent wouldn’t put me through. I don’t think he believed me that Andrew had a kid in the Michigan Fleet who was dying.” 

“What did Mom say?” 

“I don’t know. She was… You know she’s been drinking more, since we cut off contact with her. She mostly screamed drunken nonsense at me,” Liam deflects. “She was in makeup, it looked like, getting ready for a shoot.” 

“Fucking hell,” Connor mutters. He’s really crying now and not able to stop it. “Fucking Christ. I need to call her.” 

“You don’t… have to. I can’t say she’s been any better since dad stopped taking her calls, but you’re an adult now and you can decide how much contact you want with her. Her and Andrew.” 

Connor hides his face in his knees while all the towering rage that’s been building inside him comes crashing down, and he just cries, lets it out and doesn’t try to crunch the feelings down inside himself or shove them away. His dad had no idea he was dying. Didn’t know, didn’t care, probably had a performance that night that went without a hitch. Mom was in a photo shoot, drunk off her ass like she’s been for years. Both of them were fine. He tries to take a deep breath, emotional management, and it catches between his ribs. Fuck, it hurts more than he thought it would, thinking about his parents on stage being adored, while a thousand miles away Connor was fighting for his life against his own stupid choices. 

“I’m sorry,” Connor says when the emotions aren’t so overwhelming. “I’m trying.” 

“I know you are.” Liam’s eyes are wet too. He must have had his own quiet cry while Connor wasn’t paying attention. “And I know it’s not easy. Just… keep going. I know you can do it. You’re smarter than you pretend to be. Keep doing your homework, keep making friends, talk to your caseworker, stay clean. You know I’m here for you, whatever you need.” 

“I know.” Can he swallow his pride? He’s already sobbed his eyes out on camera tonight. Connor has nothing left to lose in this fight. “Love you, Lilypad.” 

“Love you too, Corncob. I’m proud of you. Now  _ fucking eat something.”  _

Connor opens his mouth to shout something back, but Liam has already hung up. 

“Mother _ fucker.”  _


	8. Chapter 8

“Can we… talk?” Rich asks, and Connor’s heart sinks. 

He’s been expecting this. Not exactly waiting for it, but he’s known it’s been coming for a while. After Liam called him to yell, accuse, and, he guesses, apologize, Connor has been on eggshells, waiting for when Rich feels like it’s his turn to do the same. They’re in Rich’s berth, alone for a change. He hasn’t touched Connor in the last ten minutes, since he arrived. Rich is fully dressed, over shirt and everything, and Connor feels half naked in his sunflower wrap and sleeveless shirt.

“Sure,” Connor says, getting ready to bail. Completely bail, get out from under the Rich Merrill umbrella of protection and find someone else to get in good with. There aren’t gangs here, not like there were on the  _ Synergy _ , so he’s not in any serious danger if he doesn’t stick with the toughest motherfucker on the ship. It’s been nice to share that private shower time with Rich, but he could carve out some safety some other time. 

“Are you really making yourself throw up?” Rich asks quietly, like he’s not sure he’s supposed to say it. 

That’s not what Connor expected to talk about. Drugs, maybe. His last ship, their relationship, Liam and his big mouth probably. “It’s not that big a deal.” 

“It… kind of is,” Rich says. “I don’t like seeing people starving, especially people I care about.” 

“It’s really not that serious. I’m fine,” Connor says. 

Rich takes his hand and holds it loosely in his oversized fingers. “You’re skin and bones.” 

Connor looks at his narrow, knobby fingers resting lightly in Rich’s meaty grip. He doesn’t have anything he can say to that. He is skin and bones, but it’s fine. Really, it’s fine. 

“Why do you think that’s okay?” Rich asks quietly. His voice is soft and husky. His eyes are pleading. 

“Why do you care? I’ve been doing this for years, and I know what I’m doing. I’m in control,” Connor snaps. 

Rich flinches like he’s been hit. “I was- On my last ship, shit was kind of… really bad. I didn’t have enough to eat for like four years, until I came here and got it fixed. I know how much it sucks to be hungry all the time, and it  _ hurts  _ to see someone else going through it when they don’t have to.” 

Connor doesn’t have anything he can say that won’t come out petulant or aggressive. 

“It hurts to look at you. I don’t really…  _ like  _ looking at you. I’m sorry.” 

“You don’t think I look good,” Connor says, not accusatory, not a revelation, just a blunt and empty fact. Rich doesn’t like how he looks. 

“You look like you’re terminally ill, man. Like you spent too much time in a radiation field and I’m gonna have to decide whether to burn or sink you soon.” It sounds like he’s trying to lighten the mood a little. It part way works. 

“Please, do you not know who I am? I have a fabulous landside burial waiting for me when I finally kick the bucket,” Connor jokes. 

“Am I…  _ supposed  _ to know who you are?” 

“Do you… not?” Connor thought that was public knowledge. He has the Hess name and the LaRune bone structure. They were the most famous power couple in Hollywood for a long time, and he was the miracle baby they showed off every chance they got. It was part of basic introductions on his last ship. Connor Hess, yes that Connor Hess, pleasure to meet you. 

“No. Why?” Rich asks.

“Do you know who Luna LaRune is?” Connor asks, grateful for a change in subject. Family business is a much easier topic. 

“The… porn star?” Rich asks. 

“Pin up model, but yes,” Connor corrects him. “She’s my mom. Andrew Hess is my dad.” 

“Andrew Hess the Rage Machine is your  _ dad?”  _ Rich asks. “And your mom is a world famous porn star. No  _ wonder  _ you’re so fucked up. Sorry,” he adds. 

“No, you’re not wrong. I grew up on camera, just like my parents and grandparents before me, and it had the same fucked up effects. Unlike them, I had the good luck of having a half brother in the Michigan goddamn Fleet who basically kidnapped me.” 

“...What?” Rich asks. 

“Mom would drop me with her ex husband and his kid when she had to travel the world and do pinup stuff, because who the fuck wants a screaming brat on a world tour, right? One year they just… didn’t give me back. I was 12 and kind of an asshole, and I guess they thought I really needed a change of pace. Mom gave up after a while, Dad never came looking for me, and I’m still here, twelve years later.”

“Holy  _ shit,”  _ Rich breathes. 

“And that’s my horrible life story. Your turn,” Connor says brightly. Most of the sting is gone after twelve years of coming to terms with the fact that his parents wanted a pretty baby they could trot out for the cameras and put away when they were done. He was proof that their Hollywood relationship was real, not a kid like kids in the fleet are, not something precious and rare to be loved and nurtured. 

“Uh. My mom died when I was a kid. Weird accident in a machine shop. My dad was killed in a gang thing in Chicago. He was a reporter,” Rich says awkwardly. “I have two sisters who are both pretty cool I guess? I don’t think I’ve ever been kidnapped.” 

“That was supposed to be a joke,” Connor says. “Hot damn. Fucked up childhood high-five.” He holds up a hand for a high-five and Rich meets it gently, like he’s scared he’s going to break him if he uses any more force. 

“Okay. Funny. Back on topic, can you please stop wasting food? It hurts to look at you, and I keep thinking that if you get any thinner I’m going to have to, I don’t know, do something about it,” Rich says. 

“Do something,” Connor repeats. He doesn’t know what Rich thinks he’s going to do, or what he actually could if he put his mind to it. Tell Connor’s caseworker? Tell Ben? Hold him down and force feed him?

“Break things off with you, probably,” Rich says, scratching at the back of his head awkwardly. 

“It really bothers you that much?” Connor asks. The prospect of losing Rich is… not great. He likes having someone to keep an eye out for him when he’s working and sleeping. Connor likes knowing that the Reliant’s security is on his side and will defend him. They did a good job keeping Liam from messing him up too badly and didn’t make a total hash of things when it turned to their usual screaming match. Hayden was surprisingly gentle with Connor when he went into a full rage, and Liam spent the night in the brig when he tried to answer in kind. Connor hadn’t gotten in any trouble at all for his dumb experiment. Life was good with Rich. 

“It does. Sorry. I’ve mentioned you look like you’re dying, right? And people wasting food really… really bothers me. Personal stuff, but not something I can ignore.” 

“Okay.” Connor lies back on the bed and stares at the ceiling for a minute. He likes being made of sharp angles. It makes him look more like an adult. When his face fills out too much he gets puffy and round, and he looks like an escaped toddler. But, facts, Rich doesn’t like him skinny, even if he does look amazing. Rich’s opinion matters enough that he has to seriously consider it. He wants to stay with him. The sex is nice, the protection is amazing, and having someone on his side at the cost of nothing but the occasional blowjob is a better deal than he’s going to get anywhere else. Can he give up his perfect figure for that? “Okay. I’ll stop wasting food.” 

“Just like that,” Rich says. 

Connor sighs. “Pretty much, yeah. Why, what did you expect?” 

“A fight, I guess? For you to stop talking to me and keep doing whatever the hell you want?” Rich asks, thinking aloud.

“I’m not gonna fight you. One, I would lose, badly. I know enough physics to put together relative mass and how badly you could fuck up my entire show.” 

“I’m not going to hurt you, Connor,” Rich says patiently. 

“Yeah. Duh. You like me,” Connor says, not trying to be too proud of it. He’s extremely likeable, and he knows it. 

“I mean. Yes. But I wouldn’t hurt you even if I didn’t like you. I don’t like James, but the worst I’ve ever done to him was tell him to fuck off and stop bothering me. I also might have flicked his ear one time, but that was a one-off.” 

Connor laughs. “Yeah, but you’re a brick shithouse and look like you got in a fight with a roto-tiller and won. He’s a beanpole with a bad attitude. He’d be a fucking idiot to go after you.” 

“...No? No, Connor. Do we- I thought you had figured this out. We don’t fight here, like, at all. No one. Ever. Do we need to talk about that too?” 

“You don’t like fighting, so no one fights. Yeah, got it. Crystal clear.” 

“No, I don’t think- That’s not- Do you-” Rich makes an awkward noise. “Do you think I’m… in charge here?” 

Connor stares up at Rich, trying to figure out the joke. He’s in charge. He’s obviously in charge. He’s the biggest, baddest bastard on this party boat. Sure, Raoul runs the day-to-day, and Ben organizes the business side of work, but Rich is on top of the heap. No one has contested that in the nearly three weeks Connor has been here.

“Oh. Oh  _ shit,”  _ Rich whispers.

“What?” 

“Connor, why do you like me?” Rich asks. “Honestly, truly, no bullshit about how I look or my dick or anything. Why do you come to my room almost every night?” 

This is absurd. Connor feels like he’s being pranked. “Is this a joke?” he asks. 

“Just… humor me. Why are you here?” 

“Because I’m safe with you,” Connor says bluntly. “Safer than anywhere else.” This has to be some kind of messed up joke, but fuck if he can figure out the punchline. He watches Rich’s face, watches him process, watches the terror dawn. 

“Oh  _ fuck.”  _

“Rich?” 

One of Rich’s arms curls around the back of his neck and the other wraps around his stomach and he folds down into a recovery position. 

“Rich? What’s wrong?” 

“I should have checked,” he mumbles. “I should have asked. Fuck.  _ Fuck.  _ Why didn’t I  _ ask?”  _

Connor is getting the distinct feeling that he’s fucked something up and needs to start doing damage control. He brushes his fingers over the back of Rich’s neck and says “Hey, it’s okay. Just breathe.” 

Rich lurches away from him, off the bed and across the room in one giant step. 

“Are you okay?” Connor gets up to follow him. He doesn’t know how this game goes. It’s a new one for him. 

Rich is pulling on his hair harder than looks comfortable. “Can you… leave? I’m really sorry. I need to think. I. I just need to think for a second.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Connor says. He lets himself out and goes back to his berth. That… did not go how he expected. A little bad, a little good, a little more bad. “Fuck,” he says into his dark room. 

* * *

The next morning, Mitch is waiting for him in the mess hall. He moves from his usual table to Connor’s as soon as Connor sits down. 

“Hey. Can I, uh, talk to you about something kind of serious?” he asks awkwardly. 

“Sure.” Connor says, feigning calm. Mitch doesn’t have his baton on him. He can still kick the shit out of Connor if he gets it in his head to do so, but Rich doesn’t like fighting on his ship. It’ll mean a consequence or two if Mitch tries anything.

“Do you know what quid pro quo means?” 

Intimately. He’s made a living on it for the past three years. “Yes?” he tries, not sure where Mitch is going with this. Is he making a move against Rich? Is he quitting his suppressants? Is he after Connor?

“Good. So. Off the record and completely unofficially, are you in any kind of quid pro quo trade with anyone on this ship?” Mitch looks like he would do anything not to have to ask. 

“Nnnno?” Connor feels confusion, a new kind of confusion starting to worm into his thoughts. He thought what was going on was obvious, and no one talked about it because it was the kind of illegal that goes on behind the scenes every day, everywhere. He was one of Rich’s people. So was Mitch. They were all on the same side and no one kicked anyone’s teeth in because everyone paid their due and stayed friendly. He’s also starting to get the sense that he has wildly miscalculated. 

“Okay. So your relationship with Rich is completely consensual?” 

“Yes?” Connor says, “And also, what?” 

“Okay. Good. He… Okay, Rich has panic attacks and overreacts to things sometimes. It’s not really his fault. He was in a really shitty situation before and it kind of twisted his head around about some stuff. He’s gotten it into his head that he’s, like, abusing you somehow.”

“I mean, we had a fight last night,” Connor explains, thinking fast. “It ended on a kind of weird note and he asked me to leave really suddenly.” He has severely misread this situation for weeks. This conversation needs to end immediately so he can go figure things out, maybe talk to Rich. He can still spin this so he doesn’t get shore leave for unlicensed PRT, but he’s going to have to work quickly. “Should I go talk to him?” 

“That might be a good idea. He’s in the green community room obsessing over the plants. You want some back up? He’s… not in great shape this morning.” 

“I think I can handle him.” 

* * *

Rich is red-faced and cross-eyed, lying on his side on the floor with the succulents’ pots spread out in front of him. He’s touching the nearest one, a plump, spiky beast of a plant, with one absurdly gentle finger, petting it like a newborn kitten. 

Connor steps around the plants and waits for Rich to acknowledge him. He’s either ignoring him or isn’t capable of noticing right now, because he doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, doesn’t react at all to Connor’s skinny legs in his view. Eventually, Connor puts his foot on Rich’s shoulder and tips him onto his back. Rich’s limbs splay out and he looks up at Connor. 

“Hey,” Rich says intelligently. 

“Did you want to maybe talk to me first before you accuse yourself of raping me?” Connor thunders. 

“...What?” Rich asks. 

“You. Went and talked to security. About how you think you’re assaulting me,” he explains more slowly. 

“Oh.” 

“And now you’re roaring drunk and not able to have a fucking conversation about it,” Connor accuses. 

“‘M not. ‘M not drunk. Just. Din’t feel good so I had some… a lil’ vodka,” Rich explains. He sounds awful, thick and slow like he’s been drinking his sorrows for hours. 

“You’re absolutely fucking wasted and you’re telling people I’m your fucking victim. That needs to stop,” Connor says sharply. He can’t get distracted. This needs to be fixed before anyone else finds out. 

Rich sniffles and looks back at the plants. “I  _ am  _ hurting you. You think I’m running pro-protection for you, n’ you’re paying me in  _ sex.  _ Just like the shithole  _ Synergy Sympicato  _ not  _ Reliant  _ bad ship.” He’s a disaster, slurring and barely intelligible. 

“You fucking idiot.” Connor can absolutely spin this. He sits down with his hip against Rich’s bulk, leaning an elbow on his chest. “I don’t think you’re running protection for me. I  _ know  _ there’s nothing here for you to protect me from.” He does, now, after crunching the numbers for most of a 15 minute walk down to Rich’s green lounge. He misunderstood how this ship runs, and that’s a mortifying mistake he’ll never live down if anyone finds out. But he can spin this. “I said something kind of stupid last night and I think you misunderstood. Can I try again?” 

Rich nods. 

“I feel  _ safe  _ with you.” That’s not exactly a lie. “I know you won’t try anything I’m not willing to do.” True enough for this conversation. “That’s a new phenomenon for me. I haven’t had that, haven’t felt safe like this, in years.” Oof. Little too real there, Connor. Reel it in. “I’m sorry if I made you feel like I’m using you for something. I like you, Rich. You’re giant and beautiful and gentle and genuinely a good fucking person, and that’s new enough for me that I don’t want to lose you over a stupid misunderstanding.” He likes being with Rich, even if there’s nothing in it for him. The sex is good, the cuddling is nice, Basil is cute, Rich actually is a gorgeous extra rare beef steak of a man who apparently has no idea how he looks, and Connor hasn’t had this much fun in a relationship in years, current predicament notwithstanding. He kind of hates that he’s sharing someone with his idiot brother, but he can get over that if it means staying with someone as bone-deep  _ good  _ as Rich Merrill. 

“Really?” Rich asks. His eyes finally focus on Connor and he starts crying. “For-real, really?” 

“Yes, you giant disaster. Really. But from now on, when you have a problem with our relationship, you have to talk to  _ me  _ about it, not your dumb friends. Fair?” 

“Yeah. That’s fair,” Rich sighs, then groans. “‘M really drunk.” 

“I can tell,” Connor says. “Do you think you can stand? You should probably get to bed.” 

“Noooooo,” Rich grumbles. He reaches for his plants again and knocks one over. It doesn’t break, but a little soil spills out onto the rug. “Wanna. Plants.” 

Connor smiles indulgently and plays with Rich’s hair. “You can plants for a little while longer, but then you have to go to bed and sleep this off.” He has fucked up gloriously and is going to be doing damage control for days, maybe weeks. Right now he has the groundwork laid and can build from there. This could turn out okay. He can make this okay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW you can follow me at rockshitty on tumblr for more hot nonsense, writing snippets, updates on fic, shit like that. 
> 
> Also, there are only like four more chapters of this to post. It's all written and waiting, has been for a while. Leave a comment and let me know if you want me to drop it all at once or if you like weekly updates.


	9. Chapter 9

“Okay, serious question, is Ivanka Inchworm supposed to have OCD?” Connor asks the group. 

“I have never known,” Basil says. “Like, it’s obvious she does, isn’t it? She counts everything constantly, but no one thinks it’s a problem on the show.” 

“No one thinks anything is a problem on the show,” Connor argues. “Grumpy Gus is definitely depressed, but he never gets any treatment for it or anything. No pills, no therapy, nothing.” 

Basil hisses in a breath. “I mean, you can’t show someone taking pills in a kids show. Kids emulate shit they see on tv.” 

“But Basil,” Connor quips, absurdly cheerful out of nowhere, “Family Fleet is for  _ everyone.”  _

The whole chat howls with laughter, because he got the tone  _ perfect _ . They’re getting ready for Monday night DnD, just waiting for Trimmer to find his notes so they can start their adventure. Rich finally convinced him to let Connor join. He and Trimmer had a little bad blood over the fermented garbage thing, and it took a lot of Rich talking to one, then the other, then Connor’s caseworker, and it turned out they had the same therapist, which was kind of weird to think about given how much Rich talked about Connor their last meeting, and he finally convinced everyone that Connor was mostly acting like an idiot because he was bored and needed some more friends and fun in his life. He’s allowed to play DnD with them and talk to people off ship as long as there’s no in person meeting for the length of his probation, and in return Connor promised to start taking his homework more seriously. 

“Rich, I want your opinion,” Connor says. “Ivanka Inchworm. OCD or no?” 

“What?” Rich asks. “I haven’t watched the show regularly in over a year. Why are you asking me?” 

“Here we see the wild Merrill displaying an  _ astonishing  _ lack of self awareness,” Trimmer says like a nature documentary voice over. 

Rich laughs. “Man, what?” 

“You seriously never got dinged for OCD on your personality tests?” Trimmer asks. “How the fuck did they not pick that up?” 

“I don’t have OCD,” Rich says, confused. He feels like someone would have mentioned that, and no one has ever brought it up to him before. 

_ “Astonishing,”  _ Trimmer repeats. “Would anyone else on our panel of experts like to weigh in? Does he still clean his room twice a day?” 

“He showers twice a day. Cleaning is more of a constant, ongoing effort,” Connor says. 

“I own a lot of stuff and don’t want to live in a disaster zone. You’ve seen what happens to Basil’s room when he doesn’t clean it every week,” Rich says defensively. He doesn’t want his room to be gross. When his space isn’t clean he has nightmares more often and drinks more, and he really is trying to cut down on that. 

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Trimmer says. “A lot of people are neurodivergent. Most people, I’d guess. Fuck, I’ve got that acute anxiety shit. Connor has his whole slew of problems. Basil, what’s your issue?” 

“Depression,” Basil says automatically. “And you definitely have OCD, Rich. Explain the room cleaning cycle to everyone.” 

“It’s- I don’t-” Rich sputters. 

“What’s the room cleaning cycle? Is that like where you used to scrub your walls until the paint flaked off?” Trimmer asks. 

“I don’t do that anymore!” Rich says. “The room cleaning cycle is just a sensible way of keeping my room clean. My room has four quadrants and there are 28 days in a month, so if I focus my cleaning on one quadrant every day I’ll hit all of them seven times in a month. On Tuesday morning I deep clean whichever quadrant is up for it that day, so I hit all of them with a more thorough scrub once a month. It keeps my room clean without me having to think too hard about what I've already cleaned every week. It’s just common sense!” 

“Okay, good to know there’s  _ some  _ method to the madness,” Connor says. 

“It’s really not- I’m not OCD. That’s not even what OCD is! Connor has more obsessive compulsive shit than I do,” Rich says defensively. He feels bad about throwing him under the trawler like that, but they really aren’t being fair right now. 

“Hey. I’m managing,” Connor says. “Haven’t thrown up in four days.” 

“Yes, we’re all very proud of you for being marginally less disgusting,” Trimmer says. 

“Thank you for your support,” Connor says primly. 

“Anyway, my notes were in my laundry basket. Who’s ready to dungeon this dragon?” Trimmer asks. 

* * *

“You know who would probably like that?” Connor says when they’re done and he, Rich, and Basil are all together in the green lounge. They played in separate rooms to cut down on microphone echo and met up afterwards for a continued hang out and some casual cuddling while Basil worked. He and Rich are tangled up on the couch together. Connor is in the squashy chair working his way through a bag of potato chips. He likes the salty kind, not the sweet kind, and explained he’s willing to pay extra for the weird flavored ones. 

“Don’t say Mitch,” Rich says. People always make that comment when they find out what he does on Monday nights. 

“Why not? He would love it,” Connor asks. 

“Yeah, he does, and then things go wrong and he gets frustrated and quits. It’s creative problem solving. It’s supposed to be hard, and Trimmer’s a dick who specifically works to make everything go wrong the first time around, no matter what we do, so we have more problems to solve. You know how seducing that guard ended in you getting kidnapped? That’s the third time that’s happened to someone in our group. First time was to Mitch, he flubbed combat, thought he could talk his way out of it, and it ended with his character dead. That was two months ago and he still hasn’t come back to play again,” Rich explains. There’s just something about Mitch’s sociability that doesn’t fit with everything going against him, no matter what he does. He likes being able to solve problems as they come up, and when they compound because what he tried went wrong he doesn’t have fun. 

“That’s kind of bullshit. Why didn’t he just kill the guard?” 

“Probably because IRL he is the guard and doesn’t like the idea of killing anyone?” Rich suggests.

“Yeah, that tracks. Who was the second one?” Connor asks. He flips a potato chip off his thumb and catches it in his mouth. 

“Me,” Basil says. “I killed the guard, but I went into it planning to kill him. I needed a skull to cast a spell and it was either hang out on a street corner and kidnap the first orphaned child who walked past, or find someone to seduce and cut their head off in the middle of the night. I chose the second one because Brahm is supposed to have a soft spot for orphans.” 

“Hey,” Connor says. “Is Brahm evil? I’ve been meaning to ask.” 

“He’s definitely not good!” Basil says brightly. He sits up and gets off of Rich’s chest, poking at a new screen. “Talk about normal, not murdering stuff for a minute. I’m getting a ping from the ship I’m working on.”

Once Rich isn’t being a couch he rolls halfway over and gets more comfortable, stretching his spine. It gets stiff sitting in the same position for too long. “Have you really not thrown up in four days?” he asks quietly so Basil’s microphone won’t pick him up from across the room. That would make at least once since they talked about it six nights ago, but that’s not terrible. Better than it has been, if the way Connor’s jawline is a little less razor sharp tonight is any indication. They haven’t been face to face in a few days. Rich is still feeling a little bit of sting from their fight and hasn’t been in the mood to see him, feel his ribs, or bring it up again until the issue has really passed. 

“Yeah,” Connor says at the same low volume. “No big deal. I’m eating a little less to compensate, but I’m not wasting food anymore.” 

That’s not ideal, but it’s better. “That’s a really good start. Have you told your caseworker about it?” 

“I’m working up to it,” Connor says. “Can you try not to tell her about that particular problem for now? I want to see if I can fix it on my own without her finding out.” 

“You should talk to her more. Ms Travis is nice.” 

“Mm.” Connor doesn’t say anything else about it. 

“Do you really think I have OCD?” Rich asks after a few seconds of no one saying anything, except Basil on the other side of the room pinching the bridge of his nose asking the technicians on the ship he’s working on why they thought it was a good idea to install a humor module in their ship’s core personality. 

“I don’t know. I’m not a psych expert,” Connor sighs. “But you do realize that, like, no one keeps their shit as clean as you do, right? Or thinks as hard about how to clean efficiently or whether or not the plants are happy or if they have enough vodka to enjoy it for two nights or… anything.” 

Rich blows a breath out from his lower lip. He’s never enjoyed this conversation. “I have a lot of anxiety. I have to put it somewhere. Plants and cleaning are something I can focus on every day that have an effect on the world I can measure.” He’s talked this out with Ms. Travis enough that he knows how to explain it quickly. It’s still not fun to talk about. 

“You’re on anxiety pills, right?” Connor asks. 

“Yeah.” 

“And you still have anxiety?”

“Less, but yeah. A little.” 

“You’re on the wrong fucking pills. Talk to Ms Travis about it and tell her you either need a higher dose or a different active ingredient,” Connor says. 

“I… might.” Rich doesn’t really want to change medications again. The first one he was on turned him into a zombie for two weeks before Ben convinced him to stop taking it. He was on the second one for three days, and didn’t sleep at all the entire time. The newest one is nice. It gives him room to breathe and keeps him from having full blown panic attacks without any really bad side effects. He’s been on it for six months and is doing better. 

He doesn’t keep pressing, thankfully. Connor tips his head back and kicks his feet. “Bluh. Why did I get these?” He folds his half-full bag of chips shut and drops them next to his chair. He’s migrated to lounging with his legs hooked over one arm and his head on the other. “I wasn’t even hungry.” 

“I’ll finish them if you’re done,” Rich offers. He isn’t big on the salty kind, but he’s been curious what hot curry potato chips taste like since Connor got them. 

“A true philanthropist,” Connor says and tosses him the half empty bag. “Seriously, though. Call Ms Travis and tell her you need to fix your medication, or at least that you’re still having anxiety and want to know what your options are. Better living through modern chemistry is, like, my catch phrase.” 

“I’ve never heard you say it,” Rich says. 

“There’s not a lot of modern chemistry happening on this ship,” Connor comments. “I’ve also only been here for a month. You don’t say your catch phrase every episode unless you’re in a kids cartoon.” 

“Remember,  _ everyone counts!”  _ Rich quips. 

Connor laughs and slides down the chair a little more. “Hell. That should not be that funny. What time is it? I might need to get some actual sleep tonight.” 

“Around 2200, little after.” He tries one of the chips. They’re spicy, but not mouth-burning. These are fully edible and he might even get them again if he gets a craving. 

“Why is it that goddamn late? Can time not take a break? The rest of us are slacking off.” 

Rich laughs and eats another chip. “You can go to bed. I’m not going to stay up much later, either. Basil doesn’t mind working alone. He’s used to it. Third shift is like that.” Rich can feel himself slowing down, approaching that wall where all he can think about is sleep. He has maybe another half hour before he needs to be in bed, or he's going to have to skip parts of his nightly wind-down to get there faster.

“Tempting,” Connor says. “It’s also tempting to just sleep here tonight, hang out with Basil. Alone in my room is… not great recently.” 

Rich flushes a little. “You wanna… stay with me tonight?” He feels stupid as soon as he asks. They’re not really together right now. The two of them have been friendly, but not close. Rich fucked up, and Connor hasn’t been as warm since. Tonight was different, getting to spend so much time together, even if it was a group activity. A stupid, pitiful, lonely part of Rich doesn’t want it to end. 

Connor takes a look at him and bursts out laughing. 

“Sorry,” Rich mutters. 

“No, just, your fucking face! “ _ Do you wanna stay with me tonight,”  _ like we’re fifteen or something and just got done with the  _ build a family _ module,” Connor laughs. 

“I didn’t know if you were, like, into me or not and was trying to be, I don’t know, subtle I guess?” Rich tries. 

“Rich, holy shit, we’ve been  _ banging  _ for the last  _ month,”  _ Connor says loudly. “Yes, believe it or not, I’m kind of  _ into you.  _ Kind of  _ literally  _ most nights.” 

Basil pauses his call. “You guys, I’m currently on a call with the Captain of a ship that’s gone rogue and is committing crimes against slapstick, and she can hear you, so if you could talk about how much fun you have screwing each other  _ somewhere else?”  _

“Sorry,” Rich says, embarrassed. Part of him wants to know more about the crimes against slapstick, but that can wait until after the problem is solved and he’s had some sleep. He’s exhausted and trying to have emotions isn’t helping. “So do you want to go to bed?” he asks Connor. 

“Yes, obviously.” 

Rich scoops him up without thinking about it and is out the door and halfway down the hall before he considers that maybe Connor wanted to walk with his own legs, like an adult. “Sorry.” He starts to put him down. “I didn’t mean to, like, assume or-” 

“We have  _ got  _ to get you some better antianxiety,” Connor mutters. He hangs onto Rich with an arm around his neck and his foot on Rich’s belt where it makes a solid toe-hold. He’s barely taller than Rich like this, chin level with the top of his head. “And yes, you can carry me. I’m fucking exhausted. This is fine. You’re fine. No one has to freak out.” He has no reason to sound embarrassed about Rich’s screw up, but he does. 

Rich tips him into an arm and carries him that way, up to his berth, then drops him gently on the desk because it’s the shortest distance to fall. He looks at the stray notebook and pens on his desk, left over from DnD, and the stack of clothes he folded earlier while waiting but didn’t put away sitting on top of his drawers. 

Connor tips his head back and sighs. “Go ahead. I won’t even make fun of you.” 

“Thanks. Sorry.” Rich kisses Connor’s forehead and gathers his DnD things while he’s leaned down. Those go on his shelf, notebook standing up with the couple paperbacks he’s borrowing from Athena’s book trade group, pens in a glass cup that used to be a wine bottle he got at the mall. Clothes go in their drawers -- damn he has a lot of clothes right now. It might be time to go through and retire some shirts. He’s finally starting to find and commission things that aren’t black jeans, black shirts, and gray overshirts, and it’s made space in his drawers a little less readily available. 

While Rich works, Connor gets down off the desk and steps out of his wrap. He borrows a sanitation wipe to scrub the makeup off his face, and then he’s ready to sleep. 

“What’s your dosage?” Connor asks. 

“5 mg once a day,” Rich says. “Buspirone.” 

“Buspirone fives,” Connor mutters to himself. “You were a virgin before that, right? Hadn’t taken anything regularly until you got a prescription?” 

“Nothing. Wicked caffeine habit, and I’ve been drinking since I was 16, but that was my first time with, um, how did you say it? Better living through modern chemistry?” Rich finishes wiping down the surface of his desk and chair, it’s desk day, and shucks out of his boots and pants. 

“How much do you weigh again? 350?” 

“365-ish, last check up,” Rich says, pulling back the covers and crawling into bed. Tomorrow is Tuesday, and it’s bed day. He’ll run his sheets, pillows, and bed spread through the wash and pull the mattress out to sanitize around its edge and under it. It’ll take half an hour of light work, and he refuses to feel weird about keeping his space clean. 

“Yeah, you’re taking a placebo,” Connor says. 

“They help,” Rich says defensively. 

He shrugs. “Placebos help. You should still be on  _ at least _ fifteens if you want an active ingredient to fight your anxiety. With your size and tolerance for downers I wouldn’t be surprised you needed two a day.”

“Why is this so important to you?”

“I have two thirds of a chemistry degree that I’ve never done anything good with in my life. Let me help someone for a change instead of finding new and terrible ways to break a pill synthesizer,” Connor says, climbing into bed with Rich. He burrows down and curls up in his usual spot, like they never had a fight and the last week apart hasn’t been any more complicated than two people’s schedules not matching up. 

Rich puts his arm around him automatically. There’s nowhere else that’s comfortable for it, and Connor really is nice to hold onto while he sleeps. Rich hasn’t been getting as good of sleep either without someone small and lean to squeeze when he half wakes up from dreams that might have been nightmares if he could make heads or tails of them. Connor holds his hand between both of his and snuggles down into the warmth. “I like my medication,” Rich says. 

“That isn’t working for you,” Connor cuts in.

“I don’t want to change it.” 

Connor is quiet for a minute, and Rich thinks he might have fallen asleep. Then he asks “What will it take to get you to just ask about it?” 

“A panic attack I can’t think my way out of,” Rich says. He hasn’t had one of those since he started medication and never wants one again. That’s proof it’s working, isn’t it? 

“No, like.” Connor laughs. “Wrong way to ask. What can I give you that will convince you to ask your caseworker about a higher dose? What will make it worth your time?” 

“Nothing.” Rich shrugs one shoulder and jostles Connor a little. “I have everything I need.” 

“Yeah, but what do you  _ want?”  _

He considers that for a while. What does he want? More specifically, what does he want that Connor can give him? It feels uncomfortably like coercion to ask for more of this, more quiet, late nights together, so he doesn’t. What is he willing to coerce Connor into?

“I’ll talk to Ms Travis about a higher dose if you talk to her about throwing up and not eating,” Rich says before he can overthink it. That seems fair. Connor is still and silent in his arms, not responding, but not breathing deeply like he’s asleep. “Connor?” 

“I heard you. I’ll consider it. When do you talk to her again?” 

“Friday,” Rich says. “Last day of the month.” 

“I’ll… consider it. I’ll let you know by Thursday.” 


	10. Chapter 10

This has been a bad job from the start. A massive chemical factory ship is malfunctioning top to bottom, everything from their engines to their sewage system is anywhere between offline and completely on fire, and it’s taking the  _ Reliant’s  _ entire fix it crew to sort everything out. It’s all hands on deck to try to solve problems before they compound. They woke up the night shift team to help. They pulled Rich in on his day off with a promise of an extra one later in the week. Hell, they gave Connor special permission to leave the ship so he could use his chemistry training to figure out what the hell happened to the automated production lines. 

Rich is moving from station to station, trying to get the individual physical systems connected to the fleet network again so his crew can get in and fix them. It involves a lot of cramming himself into narrow panels and finding wires that have been disconnected. The first one was a head scratcher of digging through old wiring to find out if something chewed through the casings, half afraid he would find an electrocuted rat carcass somewhere, only to see that a couple of vital connecting wires had come loose and were hanging free of the solder that was supposed to keep them in place. 

After the second time seeing the same two network wires ripped from their housings he knows someone deliberately sabotaged the  _ Dispotheque _ and this is an attack on the fleet. He messages Ben that this is enemy intervention, not an exploding ship, and gets a “no shit, kid. Are we online yet?” back. 

Well. Alright then. Rich tacks the wires back into place and moves onto the next hub. Personally he feels like he would be better put to use digging through the wildly out of control AI that’s running rampant, but Ben hasn’t let him directly interface with an intelligence system since the  _ Sympatico  _ let him go, so he guesses he’s going to have to let someone else figure out why the  _ Dispotheque  _ is alternating locking down like she’s being invaded and sending everything she still has access to careening into overdrive. It wouldn’t be that bad if she weren’t doing everything wrong, like steeping sliced fruit instead of tea packets and dumping the result onto the floor in the mess, flashing emergency lights at strobing speeds that made two people collapse and have to be carted to the med bay, or combining raw chemicals in the wrong amounts to make piles of completely useless medication, and that’s just what Rich has seen in the last hour. 

He doesn’t complain, though, just knuckles down and works on unfucking one system at a time. 

After Rich gets all of the individual hubs talking to each other again and the intelligence system back in one piece, Basil finds him and asks if he minds being a ladder. 

“The pill machines are coupled to their power sources at the ceiling. We’re trying to get them unplugged so they stop wasting materials, but the forklift bots are also going insane. We already have one injury and one near miss.” 

“What happened? Is everyone okay?” Rich asks. 

“Mostly. Nate landed  _ right  _ on top of the forklift and rode it halfway across the production floor. It was really cool. But the forklift ran into Connor, like,  _ hard, _ and he thinks he has a concussion, so he went up to med to get checked out.” 

“And you want me to get hit with the forklifts instead?” Rich jokes. 

“Yeah, right. For one, you could throw these things. They’re dinky. Mostly what we need is a ladder that can move out of the way when something’s coming toward it without dropping whoever’s climbing it,” Basil explains. 

“Who’s going to be climbing me?” 

“Probably Nate. He has the best balance,” Basil says, keeping pace with Rich down to the production floor. It takes up most of the ship, with just enough space in what used to be a small luxury cruise liner for it and the 100 crew that keep it running. The ceilings are double high to make room for the machines, so someone Nate’s size standing on someone Rich’s size’s shoulders should be able to reach it. They try it, and the two of them together are just tall enough. Rich holds onto Nate’s ankles, Nate grips Rich’s shoulders with his extra hands, and they get the machines unplugged one after another, with only minor dodging of rogue forklifts required. The bots are too small to be anything but a nuisance, honestly. They’re made to lift pallets of medication, not anything huge or heavy, and barely come up to Rich’s chest. One almost runs into him from the side, but he gives it a solid shove and it veers off course into the capsule machine they’re working on instead. 

“Alright,” Rich says when they have the production line powered off and ready to be reset. “How do we get these forklifts under control?”

“There are power switches inside the cabs,” one of the  _ Dispotheque’s _ techs explains. He’s on the older side, with long gray hair in a neat bun and deep wrinkles, and he’s never seen anything like this. 

“We can work with that. Basil?” Rich asks. 

“On it.”

It’s like old times. Stupid, dangerous, wild old times where Rich grabs the out of control machine and holds it still while Basil clambers inside and fixes it. They’re malfunctioning at the source, not in their individual programming, so powering them down is enough for right now. The power switches aren’t easy to get to from the outside, but as long as the machines are still and not running into things or taking sharp turns, Basil isn’t in any danger leaning half his long body in through the window. 

Rich has the dangerous job. He has to slot his body between the arms of the forklift, catch the little machines against his stomach, and tilt them so their drive wheels are off the floor and spinning wildly. They aren’t heavy or powerful enough to really give him any problems, only about 400 pounds each, but they move fast enough that if he timed it wrong he would get a serious bruise and maybe worse from the pallet arms. 

There are six forklifts, and only the last one gives them any kind of trouble. It has decided it wants to join the New York Ballet and is doing its best twirling routine, across the floor in spirals. 

Rich and Basil watch it, trying to get a sense of its pattern and timing. 

“I could toss you on top of it,” Rich says. Its path is pretty easy to follow and predict. It’s the spinning that’s a problem. 

“I would absolutely hurl after five seconds on that thing,” Basil replies. “Spinning and I don’t work together.” 

“Huh. Alright.” Rich sets his feet and watches the thing whirl. Nothing about it is dangerous, not to someone his size. The worst its arms could do is trip him, the way it’s holding them close to the ground, and he’s a little too much of a speed bump to get crushed under its wheels. He weighs about as much as it, and could lift it over his head if he could get a good hold on it. All he needs to do is get its wheels off the ground, and there are at least three different ways he can think to do that just watching it. 

“You’re about to do something stupid?” Basil asks. 

“Seriously considering it.” 

“Want me to film it?” 

Rich nods. “Keep the view on the bot.” 

Basil pulls up a screen and focuses on the out of control forklift, following it with his camera while Rich puts together angles of attack and what’s behind his target, then takes a running start and rams his shoulder into the wildly spinning machine. They both go down in a tumble of metal and muscle. Rich rolls back to his feet and looks at the bot, on its side on the floor, still running its wheels against nothing. 

“Did I win?” he asks. 

A cheer goes up from the gathered technicians and two rush over to turn off the forklift before it burns out its motor. 

“You kids are crazy,” the  _ Dispotheque  _ tech says, shaking his head. 

“Crazy gets results!” Basil shouts, pumping his fist. 

Rich looks around, smiling shyly. He sort of wishes Basil hadn’t filmed it. Yeah, it was awesome, but now Ben is going to find out he’s tackling rogue machinery again, and he put a serious dent in the forklift’s cab. 

“Oh shit, you’re bleeding,” Nate points out.

Rich looks down at his arm. There’s a rip in his overshirt with a small, dark stain starting to spread. He must have caught it on a bit of dented metal. “It’s not that bad.” 

“Go get that checked out,” the  _ Dispotheque  _ tech says. “These machines aren’t the cleanest. I’d hate for you to end up with an infection from that little scratch.” 

“It’s fine. I’ve got a hell of an immune system,” Rich explains. He doesn’t want to go to med, not right now when there’s so much to do. It always throws him off his game. He still has a solid 60% of a ship to unfuck and can’t afford to not be at his best. 

“Kid, no doubt you’re tougher than nails and twice as pretty, but I’m not kidding around here. You could lose that arm if an infection gets bad enough. Go to med now, or I can call your department head and he can send you.”

“Fine,” Rich sighs. Ben has enough on his plate without anyone bothering him over one little scratch. Rich will go waste a medic’s time and get some disinfectant and wound sealant put in a cut that’s shorter than his littlest finger and barely even stings. If it doesn’t stop bleeding before he even finds the med bay, he’ll be amazed. 

Rich comes into a scene from a fucked up porn vid, like one of those anti-social ones out of Detroit that disaffected, miserable people all over the world get off too. Connor is lying on a gurney, stoned out of his mind, with his shirt rucked up around his armpits and his jeans open and shoved down just enough to show off his cock. There’s a medic in scrubs mouthing at his skinny hip bones, making wet sucking sounds and leaving even more hickies to add to the ones on his chest and throat. Rich stands watching them, not knowing what to do or what’s going on, for longer than he knows is right. Connor’s eyes are rolling in his head and he keeps making heaving, choking noises, but Rich guesses he’s already thrown up today, because whatever he took doesn’t come back up on him. 

Connor catches eyes with Rich for half a moment and reaches for him weakly. He mouths ‘help,’ then collapses into a shaking fit. What the fuck. Is he overdosing? What did he take?

“Shaking it off already?” the medic asks in a smooth, loving voice. “We can’t have that now, can we? Settle down, honey-bee. Daddy will get you something sweet.” He gets something out of his pocket and palms it against Connor’s throat. Connor lets out a soft sob and goes limp again. “There. Isn’t that better?” The medic asks. 

“Hey,” Rich says, not sure what he’s supposed to do here, but doing it anyway. “What the fuck are you doing?” 

The medic stiffens for a moment, then turns around with a smile on his face. “Just catching up with an old friend. We’re nearly done, so if you’d like to come back in, oh, ten, maybe twenty minutes, that would be just fine.” 

“How do you know Connor?” Rich asks. 

The medic looks surprised. “How do  _ you  _ know Connor?” 

“We’re friends,” Rich says carefully, sharply aware of how the medic has moved almost within an arm’s length of him. His stance is loose and unconcerned. His hand is in his pocket. Rich’s instincts are screaming at him, and for once, he listens. 

The medic’s hand comes out of his pocket with a little gray box palmed in the center and swings at Rich. Rich knocks it back with a backhand and grabs the Medic by the wrist. Something’s wrong. Sirens are blaring in his mind. It feels like his hand has been dunked in warm water, and he can distantly feel something cracking between his fingers like brittle plastic. He twists his hand to look and sees the pop box stuck to the back of his hand by the injector. That’s… bad. 

The medic is howling in pain, wrenching at his wrist in Rich’s grip. Rich lets him go and watches him collapse. Conflicting instincts are screaming at him, competing with a slowness that’s spreading up his arm and through his mind. 

“Broken bones,” says a little voice in his mind that sounds like Mitch. “That's a grand assault.” 

Liam’s high screech screams “Get up you junkie piece of shit.” 

“We should call security. They can sort this out,” say Basil’s slightly shaking tenor. 

Quieter but so much more important is Trimmer’s frantic whisper. “Run. Run. Just run. Get out of here. Get somewhere safe. We can figure out the rest later.” It rises over the ringing in his ears and the creeping quiet that’s reached his elbow and is attacking his hind brain, and finally gets him to move. 

Rich grabs Connor by the arm and flings him over his shoulder, moving fast and not as carefully as usual. Connor is limp and cool, pliant and far too heavy. Rich has to get them out of here, back to the  _ Reliant _ . They’ll be safe there. They can regroup, figure out what’s going on. 

He explodes out of the med bay and into the rest of the ship, racing the warm, numb feeling creeping up his arm, fighting against the labored way Connor is breathing, desperately trying to get somewhere safe before the darkness crowding his vision blacks him out completely. He doesn’t know this ship, but his instincts are good. Up. Up is safety. Up is sunlight. Up is the clean and the bright and the good people who can help him undo this disaster. 

He bashes open one last hatch and sees distant sunlight, shining down on him from the end of a long tunnel. Rich reaches for it, clambering through the deep water he’s sinking in. Then, nothing. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> extra long chapter for you this time, because I love you.

Rich is there, waiting with him when he wakes up for real. Connor has been in and out of consciousness with brief blips and flashes of memory building half a story in his mind. A medic holding him down while he seized and shook, Dr. Cook arguing with a security officer, the amused phrase “You’re not supposed to be awake. Let's get you some drugs” and Connor mumbling “Yaaaaay drugs,” while staring up at operating lights. 

Everything hurts. He feels like the 400 pound forklift managed to run him over after all, instead of just bashing him in the face at speed. Then he remembers everything after that, through the haze of headache and drugs, and wonders if it’s too late to pretend to be asleep. They wouldn’t leave him with Rich if he were anywhere dangerous. This is the  _ Reliant _ . He’d bet anything on it. 

“Are you actually awake this time?” Rich asks, not trying to hide how scared he sounds. 

“I think so,” Connor says. He feels awake, unless this is an unusually clear dream. Dreams don’t usually hurt this much. “What’s going on?” There are four security officers in the room with them and a fifth outside guarding the door. Connor has one arm cuffed to his gurney and the other in a honeycomb cast. 

“Don’t try to get up,” Rich says. “Your, uh, legs are… kind of… broken.” 

“...Both of them?” 

“Yeah,” he says, like he’s admitting something. “Kind of.” 

“Did you… break them?” Connor asks. He can’t figure out any other reason Rich would be avoiding looking at him like that. 

Rich flushes red. “I… landed on you. When I was drugged. I was carrying you, and we collapsed. I don’t really remember what happened. That medic, Peter. He tagged me with the injector. I don’t have a lot after I picked you up, but-” 

“He got you with his pop box,” Connor whispers. He tries to take a breath, but it feels like there’s a weight on his chest. Caduceus got Rich. He knows who he is. He knows his face, his ship, his relationship to Connor. He knows where they are, and that they’re both alive to talk. 

“I kind of broke his hand.” 

Connor rolls onto his side and pulls his knees up as well as he can, feeling panic rise in his stomach. One of them goes halfway before another cast gets in the way. The other doesn’t bend at all and screams at him when he tries. Breathe. Just breathe. He takes a deep, rattling breath and lets it out slowly, then another. He’s dead. He’s still breathing, but Caduceus knows where he is now. It’s only a matter of time. Caduceus is alive. He’s angry. His prey slipped through his fingers and Rich paid him the insult of  _ breaking his fucking _ _hand_.  A high, tight giggle works its way out of Connor’s chest. 

“Connor, relax. It’s okay. They caught him. Peter is in custody, on the other ship.”

“The- the other. He  _ owns  _ the other- It’s been a month! Those security are already- He’s halfway across the lake by now. We have to leave. We have to get out of here. Quick. Hurry,” Connor hisses under his breath. He starts digging through his hair for a spare hair pin, something to pick the cuffs with. His hand is clumsy with the cast, but he’s done this enough times that he should be able to manage it. Rich can knock out five security, and they can run. They might even make it. It’ll mean going to California, seeing if his mom wants to take them in, but she’ll have work for someone with Rich’s bone structure and definition, and she’s been inviting Connor to join the family business for years. Caduceus’s network might not reach that far. They might be safe there. 

“Connor, stop,” Rich says, taking his broken hand so, so gently between both of his. There’s a livid bruise around Connor’s forearm just the size and shape of Rich’s fist. “Officers from the  _ Washington  _ are keeping an eye on him, not his own ship’s security. Chief Appleton caught them trying to sneak him out and… fuck. It was kind of a mess. I was unconscious for it, but Mitch filled me in when I woke up. Really long story really short, we’re safe, and now some more security officers want to talk to you about who that medic is and what he did. He seemed like… The two of you know each other, don’t you?” 

“We’re… acquainted,” Connor says, feeling staticky and empty in the wake of a panic attack. They have Peter “Caduceus” Tulle in custody, and there’s a chance he might stay there for more than a day. 

“Is he from your last ship?” Rich asks. 

That’s one way to say it. Connor nods. He doesn’t want Rich to know who they were, what they did. What Connor did, what he paid for the little bit of safety and comfort he could scrape in that hell. 

“I think you should talk to security, tell them the truth. They’re not going to hurt you.” Rich has no right to sound that certain. He has no idea what they want with Connor, what they’ll do if they don’t like his answers. 

The four officers are still in the room, staring straight ahead like they can’t hear every word Rich is saying. They want information. They  _ need  _ it, if they’re going to get Caduceus on anything worse than a couple assaults. He’s always been smart, never left witnesses, no data trails for anyone to follow back to him. Caduceus should have killed Connor immediately, but he guesses he couldn’t resist one last time playing with him before Connor finally overdosed for real. 

And now Connor is the one holding all the cards. He has names, legal identities and aliases, and can match faces and tattoos to most of them. He knows how Caduceus works, where his product comes from and how he disperses it. All of his concrete information is over a month old, but that’s still enough to bring down a lot of big names and gut the organization. 

Connor manages to sit up with Rich’s help and addresses the nearest guard. “You. What’s your name.” 

He adjusts a little to have both Connor and the door in his field of view. “You can call me Officer Katz.”

“Officer Katz,” Connor repeats. “Do you have a first name, Officer Katz?” 

“I do. Don’t tend to use it at work, though. My friends call me John.” 

“Fair enough, Officer Katz.” Look how cooperative he’s being. “I have information that you need if you want to give that medic more than a couple bad weeks and a slap on the wrist. But first, I have demands.” 

Officer Katz raises an eyebrow. “Alright. Let’s hear them.” 

“First, get this damned handcuff off me.” 

“Per the letter of your parole, if you’re found with narcotics in your system you’re to be held in custody until your caseworker has time to fully review your progress.” 

“One,” Connor says, “I was  _ drugged and _ _assaulted_.  Two,” he continues, “I have  _ two broken legs _ . Where the  _ fuck  _ do you think I’m going?” 

The guard next to the door breaks composure and snorts. “Sorry,” he mutters, getting his stone face back on. 

“No. You. You seem reasonable. What’s your name?” Connor points to him with his cast.

“Andrew Fletcher. Most people call me Andy because I don’t have a stick up my ass.” The last bit is directed at Officer Katz. 

“Andy,” Officer Katz sighs, then starts to say something else. 

Connor cuts him off. “Nope, Andy is my new friend on the force. Andy, how badly do you want this information?” 

“Pretty badly,” he admits. “Not enough to give you anything really crazy, but I’ll see what I can do.” 

“Cuff?” Connor asks, rattling it. 

“Cuff,” Andy agrees. 

“Fletcher, for fuck’s sake,” Officer Katz says quietly. 

“ _ John _ , the kid has almost a full set of broken stems, on top of being all of five feet tall and weedy. What is he gonna do, go full Beast King on us and take down five armed officers? Look at him. He weighs 80 pounds, and five of it is hair.” 

“That was a weirdly accurate guess,” Connor says. 

Andy unlocks his handcuff. “My weird superpower is being able to guess people’s height and weight at a glance. How close was I?” 

“81.5 pounds at my last check up. No idea how much my hair weighs, but now I want to know.” Connor rubs his wrist where it’s finally free. 

“What else can I get you? Try to keep it reasonable.” 

“I want a nutrition block and a box of orange juice, my comb, some hair pins, and a hair tie, and some  _ god damned painkillers _ ." 

“Okay, I can do everything except the painkillers. That one’s in Dr. Cook’s hands. Depending on what you tell us about what happened yesterday, I can probably put in a good word regarding you  _ not  _ intentionally violating your parole and he’ll chill out and give you the good shit.” 

Connor wants to scream that that’s bullshit and refuse, but he needs to be sensible. He wants Caduceus gone more than he wants his legs to stop hurting. He takes a deep breath to calm the gut reaction and says “I can live with that. Quickly, though.” 

“Won’t be a minute,” Andy says, ducking out to run his errands. 

Connor leans back against his pillows and tries to focus on something other than pain. His entire body aches, with sharper lines in key points. “So how did I break my arm?” 

“I grabbed you out of the med bay, didn’t really have control of what I was doing, and gave you a bad fracture. Extenuating circumstances, with three times the legal dose of blackmarket painkillers in my system, so I’m not getting dropped off on shore over it. I’m really, really sorry. I kind of freaked out and wasn’t thinking about how easy you are to break.” Rich has one of those huge, absurdly gentle hands over Connor’s broken one. It’s hard to imagine him doing anything hard enough to break Connor, as careful as he always is. 

“There is no ‘legal’ dose of what he gave us. Are you sure they didn’t say ‘lethal’ dose?” Connor asks.

Rich mouths ‘lethal dose’ to himself and his nose scrunches up. “Maybe? They said I got nine shots out of the box. I’m not really sure how they work or what that means for me, though.” 

“Okay.” Connor says. “Okay.” That’s absolutely absurd. Nine shots. Connor’s three should have killed him. How in the hell could anyone, even someone Rich’s size and density, take nine shots of blackmarket interra and live to tell the tale? “Okay. Serious question. Are you human?” 

“...What?” Rich asks. 

“You should be multiple kinds of dead right now. First, you should have overdosed and died. Interra doesn’t play nice, especially on that scale. Second, you shouldn’t have overdosed and died because that first shot should have fucking dropped you and Caduceus should have slit your fucking throat. Third-” 

Katz turns his attention back to the two of them. “Did you say Caduceus?” 

“Yeah!” Connor laughs, high and cracked. “Peter Tulle is Caduceus! Surprise!” 

“But he’s a medic,” Katz says. “He’s not even a  _ good  _ one.” 

Connor makes a noise he didn’t know he was capable of, overwhelmed by the absurdity of everything. “Yes! That’s the point! He’s a mediocre paper pushing pill dispenser who’s never done anything noteworthy in his life, and then by night he’s the infamous crime lord Caduceus, running a drug ring that stretches through most of the midwest.” 

“That’s an incredible thing to accuse someone of. Do you have  _ any  _ evidence?” Katz asks. 

“What about the pop box he tagged us with?” Connor suggests. 

“It’s a pretty standard hacked together injector. Twelve unlabeled doses, automatic wheel, held together with electrical tape. We’ve had a rash of them in the fleet over the last two weeks, probably a dozen all together. It’s illegal, but not enough to ID him as a crime boss.” 

“Get into his implants. See who he’s contacted. I can match names and aliases from that, as soon as I get something to eat and get this  _ fucking hair out of my _ _face_!:  Connor screeches. 

Rich holds his broken hand and tries to keep him level. “You’re sure we can't get him a painkiller?” he asks. “He’s usually a lot more relaxed than this.” 

“It’s really not my call. Dr. Cook is the only one who can authorize that for you, and he doesn’t answer to me,” Katz says. 

Rich, the brilliant, beautiful monster, says, “Stay here and try to work out some evidence with Officer Katz. I’ll go talk to Ryan.” He disappears into the med bay proper, leaving Connor alone with four officers. 

“Implants,” he barks and points his cast at Katz instead of letting the terror of being alone with security overwhelm him. If he can stay angry, he can stay confident. He just needs to maintain this and not fall apart the moment he’s on his own. 

“Need a warrant to get into his personal communications. We already got one to check his bunk for more drugs, but that turned up nothing, so it’s going to be hard to convince the brass we need a second, more invasive one. Right now we have him on two aggravated assaults and a case of possession that we can prove.” 

“I’ve already fucking told you. He’s Caduceus. If that isn’t probable cause-” 

“Yes. I heard you. Do you have  _ any  _ proof?” Katz says. “Because otherwise we have the word of one person who may have broken parole against the word of someone who definitely broke parole.” 

Connor makes another improbable noise of rage. He hurts. He’s tired. He’s starving. His hair is a disaster and he smells terrible. If something good doesn’t happen soon he’s going to combust out of sheer unbridled anger.

“I’m sorry kid. I want to arrest him too, but we have to follow the law. This isn’t New Orleans. There’s a legal process in the fleet. If you can find a legal way for us to get even a shred of evidence I’ll pin that squirrelly fucker’s balls to the wall. Until then, all I can do is keep him locked up and hope he gets a guilty conscience and confesses.”

Andy gets back with the stuff Connor asked for while he’s working out the logistics of strangling Officer Katz. 

“Hey. Uh. Am I interrupting something?” 

“Discussing the legality of arresting someone with no concrete evidence.” Katz is too far away for Connor to wring his neck without at least a little walking, so the chances of it happening today are dropping by the minute. They haven’t hit zero yet, but they’re rapidly approaching it. 

“Yeah. Somehow that doesn’t exactly fly in the lake of equality,” Andy says. He hands Connor the block and juice and leaves two hair bands, a comb, and an entire cardboard pack of bobby pins on the edge of his bed. 

Connor gives himself exactly one minute to feel incandescently angry while he eats his block and sucks down some juice. He has eyewitness accounts of hundreds of crimes, but just his word isn’t good enough for the perfect fleet’s precious fucking legal system. They want hard evidence, and that’s why Caduceus has never been caught. 

The food feels good enough on his empty stomach to calm him most of the way back down. Finally combing his sweaty, greasy hair back into a lumpy braid gets him the rest of the way there. It isn’t easy, and his arm protests most of the angles he puts it at, but once he has a not-exactly neat braid over one shoulder Connor feels good enough to talk to security without exploding. 

“Feeling better?” Andy asks. 

“Yes,” Connor says instead of something cutting. He’s trying so fucking hard to keep security on his side today. They want his information. He wants to give it to them. Everyone can be happy if he can manage not to be a total ass. 

“Are you ready to talk about what happened now?” 

“I am.” 

“Alright. In your own words, and in your own time, what happened on Tuesday afternoon in the  _ Dispotheque’s  _ med bay?” 

Connor starts a little before that, with an out of control forklift ramming into him and, it felt like, breaking his nose. He’d been dizzy afterwards, once Anton helped him off the production floor and up the steps a little, out of danger, so he went to the med bay of the  _ Dispotheque  _ to get it checked out. Caduceus was there.

“Legal name for now, please,” Andy says. 

Peter was there waiting for him, alone. Connor froze. It was shock. He thought Caduceus- Peter. He’d thought he was dead. Peter got him in the neck with the pop box palmed in his right hand, then did something on his screen while Connor tried to stay standing and figure out a way out of there. Peter’s MO had always been to recruit his department and surround himself with allies, and Connor didn’t know where he could go or who he could trust. All his ship mates were downstairs, and he wasn’t going to be able to handle much movement. And then Peter picked him up and took him somewhere. Connor tried to run, to get out of his arms and anywhere else, but Peter popped him with the injector again and he couldn’t move. 

Things after that were fuzzy and confusing. Sometimes he was over-hot and sweating. Other times he was freezing and bare, exposed. Hands touched him. Tongues. Teeth. Connor couldn’t breathe. He was dizzy and disoriented, not able to put his thoughts together into a way out. 

“Then Rich was there. I tried to get to him, to get somewhere safe, but I passed out halfway there. I have a couple other memories between then and waking up, but they all scan as being in the  _ Reliant’s  _ med bay. How long have I been out?” 

Andy pokes at his recording program. “Only about 24 hours. You and Peter were stationed aboard the  _ Synergy  _ together, weren’t you? Can you tell me about that? Were the two of you close?” 

“Something like that,” Connor says awkwardly. Rich is back with Dr. Cook in tow, and Dr. Cook has a white pop box in his hand. Finally. Fucking  _ finally _ , Connor is getting the painkillers he deserves. 

“Can we have another five minutes of privacy, please?” Andy asks. 

Connor nearly screams at him, but he bites his tongue until he tastes blood and holds it in. Five more minutes, and then he can have as much of that lovely white box morphine as he fucking wants. Drug seeking behaviors will make him less likely to get drugs. He can be good for five more minutes, and then he’s going to enjoy the best high of his life. 

“Sure thing. Let me know when you’re ready for me,” Dr. Cook says, friendly as his facade always is. It’s impossible to get anything out of him that he doesn’t want to give, but he’ll deny it all day with a smile on his face. 

“You too, Rich,” Andy says, and Rich ducks out too. “Okay. Where were we?” 

“Sex for drugs was a pretty common trade on the  _ Synergy _ ."  Connor is sweating. He just wants this over with. It doesn’t fucking matter anymore. Dignity is for people without broken bones. “So was sex for protection. Peter kept me in one piece and let me have as much of his product as I wanted, and he got to use me whenever he wanted. I’m really fucking pretty and it doesn’t take a lot to get me high. It was a good deal for everyone. You know what kind of hatchet jobs came out of that shit heap. I got through three years without any scars. No one else can say that.” Connor is bitterly, fiercely proud of that. He stayed alive and unmarked as a five foot nothing tiny tweak on a hell ship for longer than most people stayed on board at all. He was smart enough to turn what he had into what he needed, and it had ended with him still alive when everything went ass up. Nothing about it was fun. He didn’t enjoy it, and he wouldn’t go back for all the credits in the fleet, but Connor survived, and he doesn’t have it in him to be embarrassed about it right now. 

“Well. Thank you for your candor,” Andy says. “Let’s get you those painkillers.” 

* * *

They give him a baseline dose, which is  _ very  _ nice, and the splash nearly drags him under. Connor thinks he manages not to moan when it hits his system like the lake hitting a lifeboat, but Rich still laughs at him when he goes boneless on his pillow pile. 

“Why’re you still here?” Connor asks once he’s gotten past the initial relief. It just feels  _good_.  He’s not going to pretend it doesn’t.

“I only woke up a couple hours before you, and Dr. Cook wants to keep me under observation for a while. Something about three times the lethal dose of… what did you call it? Integer?” 

“Interra. That’s what it felt like, anyway. It gets nasty when you take too much. How did you survive nine shots again? You should genuinely, beyond all shadow of a doubt, be dead.” 

Rich shrugs. “They pumped my system fast and called it a miracle that my heart never stopped. This… kind of happens a lot, actually. I don’t go down easy. About every six months for the last five-ish years, something that should have killed me just… didn’t.” 

“Yeah? Like what?” 

Rich goes through them. Last winter he fell off the deck of a ship and hit an ice floe she was grounded on, then instead of being a disgusting bloody smear on the ice just sat up and called for a ride back on board. A year ago he piloted a 50 solo through a category 1 for two days, which Conor doesn’t even try to wrap his head around. You can’t pilot solo. It’s just not how things work. Especially not during a storm. Before that he nearly got bisected by a deck hopper going way too fast, but all it managed to do to him was break two ribs and give him a couple days off work. Rich has been stabbed in the liver, poisoned twice that he knows of, starved, beaten, and once got a concussion so bad he couldn’t see for four hours, and every time he’s shrugged it off after a bit of sleep and maybe some anti-inflammatories. He tells the stories with the glee of a survivor who has no idea how he isn’t dead yet, and Connor listens and makes the appropriate horrified, impressed, and thoroughly disgusted noises when it’s time for them, enjoying a good story and a pleasant high. 

“And before that I was a dumb teenager on the  _ Reliant _ ,"  Rich finishes, “and nothing bad happens on the  _ Reliant _ ." 

“Au contraire!” Connor arches his broken arm around in a dramatic circle. 

Rich laughs. “Okay, yeah, point taken.” 

The morphine is treating Connor very nicely and he hardly notices the silence they lapse into when Rich runs out of horror stories, or the way his good mood is evaporating until Rich asks, “Any ideas what to do about Caduceus?” 

“I haven’t been thinking about it,” Connor admits. Caduceus doesn’t leave evidence, ever. He’s too careful for that, too clever, has too many people in his pocket. 

“What would it take to prove Peter is Caduceus?” Rich asks Andy.

“Confession is the gold standard,” Andy says. “For something like this, it would take a confession of identity on camera or in front of an officer. Problem is, we can’t get the cameras in the  _ Dispothique’s  _ brig working. We’ll get them back online, and then five minutes later they’re down again. Peter’s maintaining a story where you begged him for painkillers, Rich threatened him, and he was scared for his life.” 

“So it’s the unsupported word of two criminals against each other,” Connor says bitterly. 

“Not exactly. We’ve got him on camera touching your neck before all the recording devices in the med bay went down too. Given the little bit of evidence we have, the fact that your and Rich’s stories match up with no opportunity to compare them beforehand, and your respective states when we arrived, we’re going to get Peter on attempted murder and possession. That’s enough to kick him out of the fleet at this point.” 

Not enough to keep him out. Connor has played host to enough Chicagans on the  _ Synergy  _ to know how easy it is to sneak past fleet security and get onto a ship. It’s not enough to get rid of the dozens, maybe hundreds of people under his thumb who will all be gunning for Connor as soon as this is over. Not enough to fix how deeply he’s poisoned the Michigan Fleet. “How do I link him to the name Caduceus?” 

“Getting him to answer to it on camera is enough. I think you have to record him unambiguously responding to it three times to legally attach him to the name,” Andy explains. 

“Two times in one conversation or three times across multiple conversations,” Officer Katz cuts in. “What are you thinking about?” 

“Caduceus likes talking to me. If I can have a few minutes alone with him I can get him to do that, and probably get him to name some of his supporters.” A plan is forming in Connor’s mind. 

“Cameras in the brig aren’t working,” Andy reminds him. 

“My implants work fine. Is there a way for me to record him without him knowing?” Connor asks. “An invisible screen or something?” 

“Not without the approval of special ops. We would need at least one spook on the case, and that could take a couple weeks. We can only hold him for another 48 hours before we have to charge him with something and dole out some kind of punishment.” 

Rich raises his hand. 

“Yes, Mr. Merrill?” Andy calls on him like a schoolfeed teacher. 

“Would a voice recording work?” 

“As long as it’s high quality enough to ID him from it,” Andy says. 

“Okay, do I have permission to leave the ship and take a trip to the mall? I have an idea, but I need to see if I can get my hands on something first.” 

“You aren’t being charged with anything, so you’re free to come and go as you like. Unofficially, as the guy who watched you stumble around confused and stoned for three hours, I’d like to recommend you get someone else to drive you so you don’t end up in the lake, but go for it.” 

“Doable,” Rich says.

“What are you thinking?” Connor asks. 

Rich drops a kiss on his head. “I’ll let you know if I can find what I need. Keep brainstorming in the meantime. I’ll be back in a couple hours.” 


	12. Chapter 12

Connor lets himself into the brig of the _Dispotheque_. He has to open the door sideways, ease through, and pretend to flinch when it squeaks swinging shut. The guard outside knows to stay quiet and let him talk unless his life is in danger, so he has all the time he needs. Still, he’s putting on a show.

He’s in a float chair for the time being. Dr. Cook told him he’s looking at another month of this, then about a month of limping around on crutches before he’s fully recovered. He’ll be back to normal eventually, but it’s going to take time. 

“Oh, Honey-bee. What did they _do_ to you?”

“Hey Caduceus,” Connor says shyly. He knows how he looks, now that he’s finally had a chance to check himself out in a mirror. His nose didn’t actually break, but he has rings of mottled blue and green bruising under both eyes. Caduceus left him some hickeys that show above his collar, as well as an ugly mark from getting popped with an injector three times in the same spot. The three broken limbs aren’t a great look, either. 

Caduceus has always liked his playthings looking a little rough. He always preferred Connor starving and strung out, a little too pale, a bit shaky, and these aren’t the first broken bones Connor has enjoyed. By the hungry way Caduceus is looking at him now, he doesn’t mind the overall effect of someone who nearly died two days ago. 

He’s still waiting for an answer, though. 

“I… uh. Rich… enforced some boundaries. He didn’t like how he found me. Needed to make sure I understood that,” Connor says quietly. He holds his broken arm, the one with the clearly visible finger-shaped bruises, and doesn’t meet Caduceus’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I should go. I just wanted to see you.”

“You don’t have to go. It’s nice to see a friendly face, even if you are a little worse for wear.” Caduceus’s voice turns dark. “Do I need to enforce some boundaries of my own? I still have friends on this ship. No one is allowed to treat you that way, Honey-bee.” The ‘no one but me,’ goes unsaid. 

“It’s okay. He’s being kept away from me, out of the med-bay while I recover. A couple guards - not his, a group from the _Washington_ \- are keeping an eye on me. I heard them talking when they thought I was asleep. This is it, Cad. Shore leave for both of us.” 

“You say that like you’re revealing some grand secret.” 

“What do we do?” Connor asks with tears in his eyes. 

“Come here.” 

Connor flinches back. 

“Just come over here. I want to fix your hair. It’s a mess and it’s bothering me. I don’t want to hurt you.” 

Connor floats his chair over to the bars of Caduceus’s cell and turns sideways so he can reach his braid. Caduceus isn’t in much better shape than Connor. One of his hands is wrapped in a balloon of gauze and tape, holding the broken hand underneath still and in shape, and there are some interesting bruises on his arms and jaw. 

“It’s hard to get it neat with one working hand,” Connor admits. 

“Can we manage it by committee, do you think?” Caduceus asks, holding up his working left hand. It fits through the bars to his elbow and gives him just enough reach to undo Connor’s hair. 

Connor volunteers his right and they start the slow, awkward job of trying to braid one person’s hair with two unconnected hands. 

“What are we going to do?” Connor asks again, desperate and scared. 

“This fleet is nothing if not compassionate,” Caduceus says, thinking aloud. “They’re not going to drop either of us until we’re fully healed. They honestly might not kick you out at all. You have at least a month to talk your way out of this, turn on those crocodile tears, really play up the pity.” He tugs a lock of Connor’s hair. “If they do dump you, come find me in Detroit. I’m already in good with one of the gangs there. Red flags, can’t miss them. If they don’t, get a few days off and come find me anyway. I don’t want to give up the fleet as a market just yet, and you’ve been involved in business long enough that you could pick it up with a little help,” Caduceus explains, like it’s that simple. 

“Help from who? I don’t even know who’s left of the old crew. Did Trigger make it out?” 

Caduceus’s hand turns into a tight grip on Connor’s braid, not yanking yet, but a threat. “You’ll do well not to mention him again.” 

“Sorry,” Connor mutters, and Caduceus gets back to work on his hair. It’s slow going and not exactly easy. Caduceus’s fingers are cold when they brush Connor’s, and Connor twitches back every time. If Caduceus notices he doesn’t say anything about it. 

“What happened?” Connor asks a minute later. 

“Trigger started getting ideas above his station.” Caduceus’s voice is icy. “He thought he was going to go into business against me. He and twenty or so associates. I took care of things before we had another gang war.” 

“You killed them?” Connor asks. 

“That’s such a dirty way to say it. Move back a touch. We’ve gotten to the end of what I can reach.” 

Connor floats his chair back a few inches until there’s tension on his braid again, and the two of them get back to work. 

“All I did was provide the poison. I didn’t ask anyone to take it. The fools did that all on their own, as they tend to do. I’m so sorry you got caught up in all of that, Honey-bee. You’ve always been such a lovely little comfort to me, so beautiful, and so _willing_. Losing you hurt more than I like to admit. It honestly boils my blood to think of that _brutish_ tweak with his hands on you. I hope he hasn’t stretched you out too much.” 

“Not… not too much. He only really uses my mouth, and he has a couple other toys he likes better than me.” It feels gross to talk about Rich that way, to talk about _himself_ that way, but Connor has to talk to Caduceus in a language he understands if he’s going to get anything out of this.

Caduceus snorts. “And now I’m offended on your behalf! I need to have this idiot killed now, if he can’t appreciate you properly.” 

“Cad, no. He’s my protection here. It’s worth the occasional blow job for me to have security on my side.” 

“Oh, jesus, Honey. We have _got_ to teach you how to cook. Even your pretty mouth is nothing compared to a couple hits of kingslayer or a nice valiant habit. God, what I wouldn’t give for some valiant and a couple of good looking bunk-buddies right now.” 

“I tried,” Connor says defensively. “My stupid plug got me the wrong enzyme for kingslayer. I could have had a nice little business going once I got off parole, but fucking Evan and his fucking plastics ship couldn’t tell the difference between a vial of N61 and N63, and I got food poisoning because he had to go and screw up my operation.” 

Caduceus starts chuckling halfway through Connor’s rant and by the end he’s wheezing into his broken hand, coughing out laughs between harsh breaths. He must be smoking again if he can’t have a laughing fit without coughing. Some absurd little part of Connor is disappointed in him. He said he was going to quit. The liar. 

“Oh, Honey, no! That was _you_?” 

“You knew about that?” Connor asks. 

“Evan’s ship has been in my pocket since the _Synergy_ went down. It’s one of my suppliers, and we have an exclusionary contract. If I had known you were the twitchy little twink trying to cook kingslayer on a party boat I would have let you get away with it, or at least come to collect you sooner. What a waste of time.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“I admit, the _Dispotheque_ wasn’t exactly a flawless job,” he says airily, twirling Connor’s braid around his fingers, “but it would have worked perfectly if you didn’t look so bloody delicious filling out your jeans like that. I thought I liked you thin, but you’re absolutely decadent with a little meat on your bones.” 

Connor laughs, playing along. “You’re serious? You hopeless fucking romantic. Did you really shut down an entire ship just to get your hands on me, then mess it all up because you couldn’t resist taking a bite?” 

“So it wasn’t my finest hour. Sink me, why don’t you. The rest of it was pretty solid work, though, you have to admit. I’ve been planning this since you kicked up all that dust on the _Reliant_ two weeks ago. So, in a way, you getting food poisoning worked out better than expected.” 

“Caduceus, you’re an idiot.” 

“Yes, but I’m your idiot,” he smiles softly. “What do you say, Honey-bee? Do you want to stay in the fleet after all, or do you think you could stand to come have an adventure or two on dry land with me, once this is all settled out?” He tickles Connor’s neck with the end of his braid, aiming for the C he carved there three and a half years ago. One scar, Caduceus promised, one mark, and no one would ever put another on him as long as they were together. 

“Depends, how fast do you think you could get an enterprise set up in Hollywood? I’ve got family in California that I owe a visit, and they probably wouldn’t mind hosting myself and my boyfriend for a month or two while we’re looking for work.” 

“ _Boyfriend_. I do like the sound of that. Let’s plan on it. Meet up in Detroit, catch a train west, live like the rich people do and feed them all sorts of tasty, exotic toxins. If I can find a materials supplier quickly, assume two to three weeks before I have something small going. Do you think you can put up with your boyfriend being too busy for you for that long?” 

“It would give me plenty of time to enjoy Hollywood. I think I’ll survive, as long as it’s not much longer than that. I don’t think I’d make it out in one piece if my family and I had to spend more than about a month in each other’s company. Are you going to be able to live with three babydoll mods under one roof together?” 

“If they all look as amazing as you,” Caduceus starts. 

“Please don’t try to sleep with my parents.” 

Boots start marching down the hall in mechanical 4/4 time and Connor stiffens involuntarily. 

“Is someone in here?” calls a guard from outside, not the one waiting for Connor. 

“No,” Caduceus calls back, “I’ve escaped and am on my way to Cuba. See you never, suckers!” 

“Shut _up_ , Peter. No one wants to hear it.” 

The boots march away and Connor relaxes some. He takes his braid back from Caduceus, who’s been playing with it idly while they plan for the future, and drapes it over his shoulder. 

“I should go,” Connor says. “I’m supposed to be getting some fresh air on the _Reliant’s_ sun deck. They’re going to miss me eventually.” 

“I’ll see you soon, Honey-bee. Detroit. I’ll keep an eye out for you,” Caduceus says. 

“Detroit,” Connor promises. “I’ll see you there. I love you, Caduceus. Don’t make me regret that.” 

“Never,” Caduceus says. For once in his life, he sounds earnest. 

* * *

“How?” Andy asks when Connor gets back to the _Reliant’s_ med bay. 

Connor shrugs. He feels dirty. All he wants in the world is a long, hot shower and maybe to throw up a couple times, really purge his system. He settles for ripping the analogue microphone out of his wrap and finding a disinfectant wipe to scrub himself raw with. God. Caduceus touched his hair. He touched _all_ of his _hair._

“Okay, but _how_?” Andy is insistent. He helps Connor get out of his shirt when it catches on his cast, though, so Connor doesn’t have it in him to be too pissed off. 

“I showed up in a tight shirt and a short wrap looking pitiful. It’s Caduceus. He tells me everything. Sorry I couldn’t get more names for you. If I knew who was still alive from the _Synergy_ I could probably get more.” 

“Kid, you got him to confess to _62 murders_ and something like 150 counts of malicious hacking. You ID’d him as the crime lord Caduceus and got him to answer to it on record. Shit, kid. At this point you gift wrapped a drug ring.” 

“Fantastic.” Connor gets the hover chair to tilt enough that he can get from it back into bed. “Painkillers,” he snaps. He needed a clear head and a sad face to make this work, so he skipped his morning dose, and after almost an hour of moving around, tensing and flinching at every little thing, he aches in a uniquely horrible way. He gets the paper sleeve with his pain pill and knocks it back dry. It’s a little disappointing that he doesn’t get his extra one, that this morning’s dose is just lost to the ether, but he’ll survive as long as he doesn’t have to miss out on too many more. 

Connor is down to two security guards, keeping an eye on him for his own safety, Andy explained. He and Officer Katz both volunteered for the job for the foreseeable future while the rest of the _Washington’s_ security force takes down this drug ring. They need Connor alive to testify against the truly insane number of criminals they’re going to be bringing in. That means they need trained and tested professionals on the job, not the _Reliant’s_ security team of six hyper social jack offs. 

While he’s enjoying the fuzz of good polyopioids, Connor texts Rich to let him know his plan worked. 

Connor Hess IST: You, mister, are a fucking genius. 

Connor Hess IST: A fucking genius master of ancient technology with a cute butt. 

Connor Hess IST: The butt is the most important part. 

Richard Merrill IST: Hi Connor. You got back in one piece?

Connor Hess IST: No more pieces than I left with!

Richard Merrill IST: The microphone worked?

Connor Hess IST: It worked so fucking nice. You have no idea. 

Richard Merrill IST: Think they’ll let me hear the recording when I’m off shift? 

Richard Merrill IST: I’m kind of curious now. 

Richard Merrill IST: What does a murderer sound like when he’s not murdering?

Connor Hess IST: Probably not. It’s security evidence now. 

Connor Hess IST: Maybe you’ll get to hear it when it gets turned into an episode of Security Stories. 

Connor absolutely does not want Rich to know what he said about him. Rich has never fully gotten his head around the fact that Connor was using him for protection for, like, three weeks before he got his shit figured out, and having it laid out like that so clearly probably wouldn’t be good for their relationship. Now that Connor has a chance to try having a relationship that isn’t based on fear, lies, and quid pro quo, he’s enjoying the no strings attached affection and regular cuddling. The sex turned out to be pretty nice, too, once Connor got over his anxiety about whether or not he was in blowjob debt and what was going to happen to him when Rich figured out he was still a little scared of him and his enormous dick. 

The fact that Rich comes from fame too is, honestly, a little weird. Flinn Merrill was a household name in the fleet and still is for everyone over 20 years old. Connor remembers watching his news stories as a teenager and thinking about what a hell hole the midwest was, compared to California. He showed off the worst of Chicago using the oldest, grossest tech anyone could still get their hands on, and carved out a solid helping of fame displaying the world as it was. None of the buzzing clouds of cameras that could be programmed to find your best angles, minimize your flaws, and light you perfectly that Connor had grown up surrounded by. It was a different world.

That same chunky, ancient analogue tech saved the day today, so Connor guesses he can’t complain. Being able to hide an entire microphone in his shorts and connect it to the Reliant’s network still feels a little like cheating to him. It was too easy, and by now there’s a copy of the recording on the _Washington_ , and at least one legal team is running in circles to get warrants so they can arrest an entire crime ring. 

Richard Merrill IST: It’s weird to think about how many people are going to get shipped out because of this. 

Richard Merrill IST: Like, not just Peter. Dozens of people are getting kicked out of the fleet. 

Richard Merrill IST: All from one recording.

Connor snorts, because seriously? 

Connor Hess IST: Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night. 

Richard Merrill IST: What? 

Connor Hess IST: If you think the worst thing the fleet can do to its criminals is kick them out, I don’t want to be the one who destroys your innocence. 

Richard Merrill IST: What are you talking about?

Richard Merrill IST: Connor?

Richard Merrill IST: Connor? 

Richard Merrill IST: Did you fall asleep?

He really doesn’t want to have to explain the fleet’s not so widely known death penalty to someone who still believes in the sanctity of life, so Connor sets his Chatterbox status to offline and rolls over to enjoy the buzz of good medication. He can worry about that tomorrow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, couple of updates from my life. I've got Covid-19. It's been pretty mild so far and I'm doing okay overall. I'm just sick, miserable, and stuck inside for a few weeks. 
> 
> I've also made a fan discord for After The Storm! You can join me in screaming about it here https://discord.gg/paY4U5M 
> 
> I really enjoy all the comments I got on this fic. It's finished and going to be posted either way, but people enjoying what I do really inspires me to write more.


	13. Chapter 13

“Good evening, Mr. Hess. I hear you’ve had an eventful week,” Ms Travis says as soon as the connection stabilizes. She was grainy and glitching for a few seconds, and now that she’s clear on screen she looks less put together than usual. Her hair is down in a cloud around her head and she’s lit by bay lights, not evening sunlight. 

“Oh  _ fuck off.  _ Like you weren’t getting hourly updates straight from the fucking cops,” Connor explodes. He doesn’t want to talk to his caseworker. He doesn’t even want to be awake right now, but after everything that happened, and then news that there was a storm incoming, and his work schedule getting confused, he got shuffled to the very end of the day. He’s tired, high, and starting to ache from exhaustion. 

He doesn’t even have a work schedule right now, and it still got fucked up by the storm. Connor won’t be back on desk duty until he has full use of both hands again. Him trying to handle docking procedures from a float chair while stoned would be suicide, but the automated system put him on shift anyway and it took a couple hours of wrestling with authorization screens to get him taken back off. Now he’s stuck in his room, out of the way where he can’t break anything or bother anyone, until all the small ships are in and there’s nothing for him to fuck up. 

Ms Travis’s lips thin and Connor sees a muscle in her jaw twitch. “Let me rephrase that. You’ve had an eventful week. How are you feeling, now that things have settled, somewhat?” 

“Like refried ass. How are you feeling?” Connor asks sarcastically. 

“Stressed, since you asked. Two of my patients nearly died this week, and then one of them went through another traumatic experience immediately afterwards.” 

“You listened to the recording.” Connor’s stomach sinks. He had been hoping that was private evidence, but now she knows exactly what he did on the  _ Synergy  _ and who he and Caduceus were to each other. 

“I was given transcripts of it, your interview with Officer Fletcher, and some conversations he had with you over the last few years,” she explains. 

“And?” 

“And was asked my opinion of his impact on the Fleet, as a professional who has interacted with you.” 

_ “And?”  _ Connor prompts. 

“And I’m afraid that’s as much as I’m permitted to tell you. My testimonial is in evidence, and I’ve been asked to stand aside and let the gears of justice turn. Loose lips sink ships, and I’m not in the mood to drown myself.” There’s a cold, bitter note in Ms Travis’s voice that Connor just barely catches. 

“Fucking Christ. Are you scared of security?” Connor asks. 

Ms Travis sighs. “Not for my health or safety, but if something I do or say puts this case in jeopardy I could lose my job. I love this job and have worked hard to get where I am, and right now I have a little less privacy at work than I’m used to.” She turns around in her chair and Connor sees the deck of another boat right outside her window, then turns again and there’s just the wall of healthy potted plants behind her. “It’s smarter for me to keep my mouth shut and not risk the information I’ve been trusted with leaking out. And I think that’s enough about me for now. Beyond ‘like refried ass,’ how are you doing? I understand you’re on painkillers and bed rest. How has that been?” 

How much does he want to tell her? How much can he keep to himself? “It’s… fine. Limited dose, and someone else has control over what I take and when, so that fucking sucks. I know myself well enough that I could handle my own medication, but I guess I’ve asked for painkillers too many times and now they won’t give me more than one at a time,” he says with heat. “Can’t stop talking when I’m on polyopioids, never could, and I’ve pissed off half the med crew because I know more about drugs than them. They let me go back to my room like two days before I was really supposed to. That was yesterday, and I’ve been here since then. I get drugs delivered now, food too, and I’m pretty sure they draw straws to see who has to do it. I’ve told them at least ten times that regular opioids don’t do this bullshit, but they refuse to give me the real shit.” 

“The  _ Reliant  _ isn’t rated for natural opioids. Synthetic only,” she says. 

Connor snorts. “The fuck do you know about painkillers? The  _ Reliant’s  _ a 200. She gets whatever the fuck she wants off the pill ships.” 

“I got a crash course in medication dispersal when you were stationed here. The  _ Reliant  _ has a large population of mechanics -- people working with heavy machinery, pressurized systems, and electricity. Low dose synthetic medications only for people on board, and if someone needs more than that they’re moved off ship, either to a hospital ship or a family residency, until they recover. A mechanic in an altered state of consciousness is a danger to himself and others. A hundred of them on one ship is too high a risk, so what’s available is legally limited.” 

Connor slaps the arm of his float chair repeatedly. That answers one question pretty fucking clearly. “Is that why Rich is on a fucking placebo?” he shouts. There’s no one around to hear him. Everyone else is docking ships, and Connor is alone in the crew quarters. “He’s scared he’s gonna get fired if he needs the real shit? Shit, I can’t believe I didn’t know that, and I was such an asshole to him about his useless pills.” 

“Mr. Merrill and I actually spoke about that today. He mentioned that I should tell you that next time I saw you, and said you would have something to tell me in return.” 

“Fuck. Right. I’m bulimic. So is he getting kicked off ship for having anxiety? Because if so I’m going to pitch  _ such  _ a fucking fit, might even figure out how legal action works in this shitty country and sue Raoul. Can I sue the captain? I can probably get some leverage to get the law changed. I’m important, right? I’m Connor  _ fucking  _ Hess! I’m a fucking C-lister!” 

Ms Travis looks alarmed. “I’m not sure what a C-lister is, but I’m going to recommend against suing your captain unless there’s an emergency. It can make your career difficult if anyone finds out that you’re quick to reach for lawyers when you don’t agree with reasonable laws.”

“Yeah, and what if his fucking rights to medical care are being infringed upon?” Connor snarls.

“They’re not. He’s not. Rich is planning to stay on the Reliant. You don’t have to sue anyone,” she says quickly. Is she really that scared of lawyers? Connor might have just found his leverage.

“If I find out he’s not…” he threatens, glaring at her. 

Too far, and she flips cold, back into perfect professionalism. “Mr. Hess, the details of Mr. Merrill’s medical history are confidential. What the two of you talk about privately is your own business, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more than that we’ve talked about the issue, and that much is only at the request of my patient.” 

There’s a long, tense silence between them where they wait for the other to break first. Ms Travis’s tight eyed, disapproving stare is uncomfortably familiar. For a second, Connor is eleven years old again, being dragged home from a club by his private security after he had one too many and lost his shit where a camera could see. Bad publicity was worse than breaking the law, and being sent to his room for a few days gave him time to absorb the lesson. Then he shakes his head and he’s 24, on the  _ Reliant _ , in his tiny berth with his caseworker looking down her nose at him.

“Does the Fleet not have an influence economy?” Connor asks when he gets his voice back. “Like obviously not on the scale of Hollywood, but you don’t even have A-listers? That’s… bizarre. What’s the point of making media if you don’t even get on the list?”

She relaxes some. “Considering that I’ve never heard the phrase influence economy before, I’m going to say that no, we don’t. What’s an A-lister?” 

She doesn’t know? “It’s someone who’s on the A-list, the highest rank of people in the country. Gives them some privileges and opportunities that no one else has. I was on the C-list, so I was up there, but I wasn’t, like,  _ famous- _ famous. People recognized me, but I wasn’t a household name,” Connor explains. Honestly, he’s probably not on the list anymore. It’s been over a decade since he was on camera. He could probably get it back within a year or two, with his name, face, and story, but honestly, why would he want to go back to Hollywood? The Fleet might not have the glamorous, privileged life he was used to, but the dark underside is a lot less horrific. Homelessness is almost unheard of here, so even the most messed up people aren’t hunting the homeless for sport. They wouldn’t get away with it if they did, either. Other than the extremely rare death penalty, state sanctioned killing is almost nonexistent. The criminal underground here is downright modest, too, and in three years involved with the deep end of it, Connor never saw anything worse than the odd murder. He doesn’t know anyone in the Fleet who knows what human meat tastes like, or where to buy a child slave, or where any suicide cults operate. 

“The Fleet doesn’t have anything like that, no. Certain privileges can be stripped in response to illegal behavior, and there are a few that are earned alongside higher responsibility in some jobs, but I’ve never heard of extra ones being given for… popularity. Everyone here has the same rights, and opportunities are determined by talent and work ethic, not connections. Anyone can do any job they’re capable of, no matter who they know,” Ms Travis explains. 

“Fuck. I keep forgetting how you guys are, like, obsessed with work. Even the fucking drug lords have day jobs,” Connor says, mostly to himself. 

“It takes a lot of work to keep the Fleet afloat. It’s important for everyone to do their part.” She sounds like a god damned propaganda video, and is shrugging like that’s just common sense. Everyone works and everyone is happy about it. No slackers on this lake, no ma’am. 

“I have to say, you’re taking the bulimia thing  _ weirdly  _ well,” Connor changes the subject before they get too close to the fact that he’s going to be out of work for at least a month. There’s a solid chance he’ll sit out the entire storm season. If it’s short and he doesn’t heal fast, he may still be in his chair when the first freeze hits. 

“Oh, well, it wasn’t exactly a surprise,” she admits. “Dr. Cook brought it to my attention when you started losing weight suddenly. I’ve been aware you had an eating disorder since the 20th of last month. Knowing for sure what you have is helpful, though. Thank you for your honesty.” 

“And you never said anything? Why? It’s been over a month.”

“You weren’t willing to accept help in any other, more pressing areas without a fight. How would you have reacted to another, even more personal problem being brought to light?” 

Connor points at her with his cast. “Fair, and fuck you for saying it. So what now?” 

“That’s up to you. You’ve been managing well for the last few weeks, and even when you were losing weight you never got to a point where your medical team felt you were a danger to yourself. If you want to continue without treatment, that’s an option, and we’ll keep quietly monitoring it and only step in if it ever becomes life threatening. Or I can send you files and videos that have been proven to help people with eating disorders, or send you to a specialist who can give you more focused therapy. Eating disorders aren’t my specialty, or anything I have much experience treating. Sorry.” 

Connor nods along, then his eyes narrow. “You’re being really fucking nice to me. Why are you being so fucking nice today?” Is it ‘cause I’m high? I don’t need your fucking pity.” 

Ms Travis snorts. “I’m being nice because you’re being nice. You’ve been less combative and more open to communication, so I’ve had to spend less time defending myself. We’re able to talk more and get more done.” 

“You’re fucking with me, right? You’re definitely fucking with me. All I’ve done today is yell and bitch you out. Pretty sure I also threatened you at least once.” He really needs to figure out how to stop his mouth from running off without him. She was willing to call him nice. Why couldn’t he just take the win and change the subject?

“Yes, you have, but you’ve also told me more about yourself and your life tonight than I’ve gotten in a month and a half of regular meetings. You were angry, but you’ve also communicated openly for the first time, and that’s a huge step forward. I understand that it’s only because your medication makes you want to talk, but the fact remains that you  _ wanted to talk to me, _ and did so without trying to deflect from your problems or lie.” 

“Fuck you,” he says. “Just. Fuck you. I’m not a liar. I’m not talking to you anymore. You’re trying to mess with me when I’m high. You bastard.” 

“Our time is nearly up for today anyway,” she soothes. 

“We’ve been talking for like ten minutes,” Connor squawks. 

“My clock says we’ve been on the call for almost half an hour, and that’s all we have time for on a docking day, I’m afraid,” Ms Travis says gently. “I just wanted to check in on you and make sure you were managing. You’ve been through a lot this week, but from what I’ve seen you’re recovering admirably. I know this meeting didn’t go perfectly, but it  _ was  _ constructive, however it felt. Please remember that you can call if you need help between now and next Friday. I have time set aside for emergencies, especially during storms.” 

“Okay.” Like hell. 

“Have a good evening, Mr. Hess,” Ms Travis says. “And thank you for being willing to talk to me.” 

He sighs. “You can call me Connor, I guess. We've only been doing this shit for a month." 

“Have a good evening, Connor,” she says with a smile. 


	14. Epilogue

Connor ends up spending three weeks in the hover chair, then as soon as his right leg can even sort of take his weight, another six weeks limping around on crutches being yelled at by medics for not taking it easy. The storm season is short and he doesn’t get to work for most of it. Connor knows at least a few of his shipmates resent the fact that he gets to spend all but two storms in his room asleep, and only does a few shifts of deep processing for the last two of the season, but there’s genuinely nothing he can do about the fact that he can barely keep his balance on a good day and would have to be fished out of the lake every time the ship swayed harder than an old woman in a rocking chair. He gets in a massive fight with James over it, and James gets a black mark on his record for pushing Connor off his crutches to test his balance. 

At least the investigation moves quickly. In the two months it takes, he probably spends more time on the  _ Washington  _ than he does at home, and is trapped there for a category 4 once. At least he has people to drive him back and forth, and someone to help him up the couple times he overbalances or his good leg stops being enough to support him. 

John and Andy have been like shadows. They take it in shifts, so he only sees one of them at a time most of the time, but one or the other has been in every room that Connor is in for the past two months. They sit with him while he works and eats on the  _ Reliant  _ or goes over faces and names on the  _ Washington _ , hover near the door on game and movie nights when he practices prosocial behavior with his shipmates, and stay posted outside the door while he sleeps or is busy with Rich and Basil. On the  _ Washington  _ they follow him everywhere, never more than a few feet away. 

Connor thinks it’s a waste of resources until the end of the third week, when he wakes up to a loud thump against his door and a low “hands behind your back,” from the other side. When he steps out into the hall to see what happened he finds John putting handcuffs on Edric, who’s on the ground, recently tazed. 

“Do you know this man?” John asks. 

“Yeah, Edric Scneider. Chemical mechanic from the  _ Synergy _ . What’s he doing here?” 

“It involves you, a knife, and an unregistered midnight visit,” John says, finally getting the cuffs on Edric. 

“What?” Connor is less than a minute out of a dead sleep and not really processing. 

“Go back to bed. I can handle things here,” John says. 

“Okay.” He hobbles back to his bunk and falls into bed without realizing how much danger he’d been in. 

It turns into at least once a week that they stop someone who tries to attack Connor. Shipmates and old friends from Chicago hear the news and try to silence him, or dirty security on the  _ Washington  _ tries to stop him before they get uncovered too. The whole mess ends with over a hundred fleet citizens and nearly a dozen security officers being kicked out or put to death, massive holes in border security sealed, and two more toxic ships getting disbanded as more and more of Caduceus’s criminal underground is discovered and dismantled. Connor hears bits and pieces about supply chains in Chicago and Detroit being broken up too, and gangs having schisms over fear and loyalty when news about Caduceus spreads. 

Connor is there when he dies. He doesn’t watch, but they let him see the body afterwards, confirm it’s him, confirm Caduceus is dead on record, and he watches them put the cadaver in the incinerator and turn it on. It’s as close to sure as he can be without torching the body himself. Caduceus is dead, actually gone this time. Knowing for sure doesn’t stop the nightmares, but he recovers from them faster and doesn’t feel as weird talking to Rich about them when he wakes him up in the middle of the night.

Painkillers turn out to be a lot less fun when you need them, and after over two months of a constant, low level, unexciting buzz, Connor isn’t sad to wean off of them. Not being able to control his mouth got annoying after two weeks, and he said a lot of things he didn’t mean to to a lot of people he wishes he had never spoken to in the first place. It got a few minor criminals arrested for sexual assault and nearly got Connor punched at least once a week. Having John and Andy there to pick him up and carry him away from the conversation, or explain that he was high and not fully in control of himself, probably saves Connor’s life. 

He decides that light drinking and a life you don’t need to escape from are more enjoyable overall, and that being just a little bit fucked up at all times makes existence annoying enough that he never wants to do it again. He still misses them sometimes, and the other shit he enjoyed on the  _ Synergy _ , but not having to quit everything cold turkey, all at once, makes getting clean a second time a lot less awful. Being able to have a couple beers at the  _ Reliant’s  _ regular deck parties without completely losing his shit or passing out on a deck chair is a nice change of pace, too. He wakes up with paint marker decorating his face more than once. 

* * *

Now, he’s in the  _ Reliant’s  _ gym, recovered except for a little lingering soreness that comes and goes with cold days, some fascinating scars where his bones went through his skin and a pale seam up the front of his left leg where they were put back in -- he has pictures of those, too, taken before surgery, that he sent to Liam, and got an angry call in return -- and a lot of lost muscle mass and flexibility that it’s just going to take time to rebuild. 

Connor is kicking the bag, moving slowly and barely hitting it while Mitch holds it still, rebuilding strength he didn’t bother to tell him he never really had in the first place. Mitch was so excited to have a new gym buddy that Connor didn’t want to ruin his fun. His prescribed exercises are yoga and walking, but practicing kicks and hand to hand combat footwork are fun enough that he doesn’t mind going off book and trying to learn something new. Andy usually sits in the corner playing on a screen, or takes the time to get some walking in while Connor works out. Today he’s by the door, tapping away at a game Connor doesn’t get the point of. You just collect digital cats to look at and take pictures of. You can’t even play with them. 

Someone Connor doesn’t recognize steps into the gym, not dressed to work out. She’s older, graying at the temples, and buff as all hell under a crisp security uniform. And she’s walking directly toward him. Connor falters and has to catch his balance against the bag so he doesn’t topple. 

“Mr. Hess?” she asks. 

“You have me at a disadvantage,” he says, trying not to be intimidated. The intensity of her stare is familiar, but other than that he’s at a loss. 

“Officer Kathrine Abernathy. We’ve met once before, at Peter Tulle’s first hearing.” 

Connor squints at her, trying to place her. “Oh! You got your hair cut. It looks good.” She’s the officer in charge of the entire investigation, some distant higher-up that Connor has seen here and there but only talked to face to face once, when he was being questioned about the recording and his prior relationship with Caduceus. Last time he saw her she had something approaching a bob. Since then it’s turned into a clean buzz cut that makes her look more put together. 

She smiles. “Thank you. My wife decided it was time for a trim.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small red box. “I apologize for the informality, but this is an unusual situation and I didn’t want to press my luck with my higher-ups. Mr. Hess, you’re being presented with the Fleet Medal of Exceptional Service for your actions during the Caduceus case. Because of your bravery, the fleet is a safer place for all her citizens. Thank you.” 

Connor takes the box and looks inside. There’s a little metal circle engraved with an artist’s rendering of the  _ Washington _ attached to a bit of red ribbon nested in velvet. “Thank you?” he tries. He didn’t know the fleet gave out medals, and has no idea what this one means or how important it is. 

Kathrine chuckles. “You did good work, Mr. Hess. You should be proud. I do recommend keeping that to yourself, though. Envy is an ugly beast.” She holds out her hand to shake.

Connor takes it, incredibly confused. “What?” 

“Have a good evening, Mr. Hess.” Kathrine turns on her heel and leaves, and Connor stares after her, holding the box with no idea what it is or why she thinks anyone would be jealous of it. 

“She’s gone, kid,” Andy says when Officer Abernathy is out and the door has closed behind her. 

“What?” Connor asks. 

“Holy _shit_!” Mitch stage whispers from behind the bag. “ _Holy shit_. _That was Chief Abernathy_.” 

“Okay?” 

“She's the head of security on the _Washington_. _She’s the top security officer in the entire fleet_ ,” Mitch hisses, coming out from behind the bag. “What did she give you? Let me see.” 

“Some medal,” Connor holds it up so he can look at it. 

“Yeah. Some medal.  _ That’s the highest security award a civilian can earn, you ding-dong.  _ What the  _ heck.”  _

“He got key evidence for the case that led to over a hundred arrests. He earned it,” Andy chimes in. 

“Only three people have gotten that before!” 

“Four,” Andy corrects him. “If you’d paid attention in class you would know that. Five now, with Connor, and he’s the youngest by at least ten years. You’re what, 25?” 

“24,” Connor says. “Birthday is in two months.” 

“What the  _ actual heck _ .” 

Connor puts the box in his pocket. “You’re not going to be weird about this now, are you?” he asks. If he is, Connor will go catch up to Katherine and give it back. She can’t have gotten far. 

Mitch takes a deep breath and runs a hand through his hair. “No. No, you’re right. I’m being a jerk. Sorry. Just.  _ Chief Abernathy knows who you are _ . That’s  _ insane _ .” 

“Mitch,” Connor starts. 

“It’s also worth noting that with that, Connor is officially the most decorated security officer on the  _ Reliant _ ,” Andy adds. 

“I’m not a security officer,” Connor says. 

“Yeah. That’s the point.” 

“Wait, does this mean you outrank me?” Mitch asks. 

“ _Michigan Ford_ ,” Connor snaps, bringing out the full name. He wishes he knew Mitch’s middle name. That’s supposed to work on kids whose parents disciplined them. 

“Right, sorry. Back to normal. Do you want to finish your set or switch to footwork?” 

“Let me finish up really quickly. I only have five left.” Connor gets back into stance and Mitch retreats behind the bag to hold it again. 

* * *

Liam finds out about the medal somehow, decides they need to have a party, and spends a week obsessing over the details, trying to find the perfect venue on the perfect day to celebrate Connor’s incredible success, because he couldn’t finish his parole without his stupid family trying to throw a fucking parade over it. Finally, after a week of idea after idea dropping into his inbox at the worst times, seriously, does Liam sleep, Connor puts his foot down. 

Connor Hess IST: We’re getting dinner at  _ So Below _ . You, me, David, and no one else. Pick a night.

Connor Hess IST: And I swear to every god I know of, Lily, if you get me a fucking cake. 

Liam Beaker GE: Understood. I’ll get myself a cake and you can have some if you change your mind. 

Connor Hess IST: I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD LIAM. 

Liam Beaker GE has blocked you

Liam Beaker GE has unblocked you

Liam Beaker GE: Sunday night at 7. Dress nicely. 

Liam Beaker GE has blocked you

Connor considers blowing them off. They’re barely even family. He shares a quarter of his DNA with one of them and the other is just some guy. Just some guy who raised him for five years and made sure he got into a good program and stuck with it instead of flunking out and falling into the black hole of PRT. Just a half sibling who pushed his engineering degree back a year to make sure Connor wasn’t left alone and abandoned in a new world with no friends or family. Just the only two people who have been on his side without fail for as long as he’s known them. 

Fuck. 

He’s late, but only about ten minutes, and only because he had to go back to his berth to get a real coat and gloves for the ride over. It’s October and the lake is already starting to grow ice. Earlier he was fine on the sundeck with just a sweater, but as soon as the sun set and the wind picked up he needed something heavier or he risked losing fingers to the cold. 

His family is waiting for him in the lobby. He keeps forgetting how  _ tall  _ Liam is, towering three inches over Connor, and a whole five over David. Liam is 5’2” and insufferable about it, and Connor knows he special orders boots with thicker soles to give him an extra half inch. 

They haven’t been all together like this in years, not since Caduceus got transferred to the  _ Synergy  _ and Connor’s life turned upside down. Connor didn’t want him to know he had family in the fleet. He made sure never to mention Liam or David, only his birth parents, and always left how he ended up in the fleet a mystery. 

“You grew!” David says cheerfully. He looks older, more lines around his eyes, more gray in his hair, and Connor is struck by how alike he and Liam look. Except for the gray eyes and skin that looks gold in sunlight instead of just tan, Liam could be lab-grown.

“Three whole millimeters,” Connor says mock-proudly, finishing the age-old joke. 

“It’s good to see you in one piece, sweetie. Liam sent me those pictures of you and I don’t think I slept for a week.” 

“You  _ what _ ?” Connor rounds on Liam. 

“Were they a secret?” Liam asks, feigning innocence. 

“They weren’t public knowledge!” 

“You shared them with me pretty readily. What were you, less than a week out of surgery before I got to see them?” 

“Your table is ready, sirs,” the host interrupts before Connor can get a real head of steam going. 

_ So Below _ is one of the nicer dining ships in the fleet. It has an old world charm that’s 90% facade, plastic and metal made to look like wood, linen, and marble instead of the genuine article, but the food is genuinely fantastic and it’s a nice change of pace from the almost universally rough and rustic feel the rest of the fleet considers standard. Parts of it remind Connor of living in California. It’s spotless, everyone is impeccably dressed, and there’s soft piano music playing. Except for the lack of windows, cameras, and crowds, he could almost imagine he was 11 years old again, being stuffed into whatever his stylist chose for him that week and dragged out to dinner with his mom. 

“And the wine list. We’re celebrating,” David finishes telling the waiter. 

“We’re not celebrating,” Connor mutters after he walks away. 

“We’re definitely celebrating,” Liam says. 

“I finished parole. It’s not a big deal.” 

“You finished parole, got done with physical therapy, and earned a _ fleet medal of exceptional service _ all in one month. Your family is celebrating. You have no say in the matter,” Liam overrides his objections. 

“You what? Sweetie, that’s incredible! Why didn’t you tell us?” David asks. 

“Because it’s not a big deal!” 

“It’s absolutely a big deal and we’re definitely celebrating your enormous success,” Liam says. “So have some wine and get over yourself, Corncob. I didn’t even get you a cake.” 

“Were we planning on getting him a cake?” David asks. 

“I threatened to,” Liam explains, “and he threatened to drown me if I did.” 

Connor takes the wine list and orders a glass of something sweet, red, and older than he is while Liam makes up a dramatic story about him for his dad. 

“Very fun. So what was the medal for?” David turns his attention back to Connor. 

“I kind of helped bring down a drug ring,” Connor mumbles. 

David looks at him for a long moment with that quiet, blank expression that means he’s piecing things together rapidfire behind his glasses. He watches the news. He visited Connor a couple times during detox. It was a disaster both times, but Connor still didn’t manage to entirely cut him out of his life. Before that he hadn’t seen Connor in almost four years, and hadn’t heard from him regularly in more than six. He knew what the rumor mill spat out about the  _ Synergy _ . He knew Connor was in legal trouble as it was happening. 

All he asks is “That business with that Caduceus fellow?” in an understanding tone. 

Connor nods and looks at the place settings. The candles are definitely poly-resin, but the illusory flames burn the right color and brightness, so he almost can’t tell, except that one of the faux wax drips has a seam from the mold running right down the center. 

“I’m proud of you, sweetie. That must have taken a lot of courage,” David says, and drops it. 

After three glasses of good wine and a  _ lot  _ of grilled salmon Connor feels significantly better about spending time with his family. They’ve finally annoyed him into giving them the short version of his last three months of misadventures. “And then I had to watch the  _ entire extended series  _ of that. What was it?  _ Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds _ ? The cartoon one where they never figured out how to draw Ivanka Inchworm from the front, so sometimes you would pause it and there would be these two  _ huge  _ bug eyes staring straight through the screen into your soul.” 

“Oh lord, not the extended mini series!” David howls. “I spent four months tearing my hair out over that series.” 

“You’ve seen it?” Connor asks. 

“I helped  _ write  _ it. I was the youth psychologist on staff. That writers’ room was a disaster from day one. It’s an absolute miracle it ever saw the light of day.” 

“What happened?” Liam asks. 

“Too many cooks in the kitchen, too many greensticks, myself included of course, and we were trying to live up to the success of Family Fleet with none of the original writers or actors. Did you happen to notice how Carly Cactus’s voice changed halfway through the series?” 

“Maybe?” Connor barely paid attention to it and can’t recall much more than the worst moments. 

“Her voice actor  _ died  _ halfway through recording and we had to have emergency auditions to find someone who even half sounded like her. Ended up hiring someone for their first ever VA job and had to cut out half her lines because she couldn’t land them.” He opens up a screen. “I wonder if she had a career after that. Rebecca Doubt. Terrible name, terrible actor, made  _ terrible  _ tea.” 

“Dad, no screens at the table,” Liam says playfully, an old rule from when they were kids. 

“I didn’t cook this dinner, and we’re done eating anyway,” David says. “Rebecca Doubt, best known for her role as… she did  _ not  _ play Mistress Mayhem in the Beast King movie. I know for a  _ fact  _ her register doesn’t go that low. Hold on a moment. I need to look into this.” 

“Back in a minute,” Connor says. “Bathroom.” David is going to be sucked into his screen for the next fifteen minutes, minimum, and Liam is going to bitch at him the entire time. It’s friendly, but Connor can think of better things to do with his time than listen to them yowl at each other like angry cats. 

He didn’t realize how drunk he was until he stood up, and by the time he’s done peeing he feels like he might not make it back to the table without help. He leans against the wall in the back hall of the restaurant and tries to focus. He feels fuzzy and nostalgic, low lit and surrounded by art. It’s fake as hell, but so is Hollywood, and he still loved that lifestyle for twelve years. The glitz and glam of it all, how everyone lived in a perfect state of camera-ready, how he didn’t have to worry about what he was going to do with his life. He was Connor Hess, and he was going to go into the family business of being fabulously wealthy and making terrible decisions. 

He doesn’t realize what he’s doing until a smoke-rough voice rasps “What?” at him from the other side of his screen. Bloodshot gray eyes and a tousled head of black hair emerge from under a mountain of down blankets, and Luna LaRune glares at her son. 

“Hi mom,” he says, feeling much less fuzzy and not quite as sure of his decision. 

“Great. It’s you.” She reaches off screen and comes back with a bottle of gin. The bed around her flips when her cameras follow her and she takes a long swallow straight from the bottle. “What do you want, brat? Money? Your fucking dad? Or did you finally get a case of homesickness bad enough to call your poor mother?” She rubs makeup out of her eyes and looks him over. “Fuck, you got fat.” 

Connor tries not to let it get to him, tries to keep smiling. “I just… I don’t know. A lot has happened this month and I guess I wanted to let you know I’m okay.” 

“Oh goodie. You’re okay. You woke me up to tell me  _ you’re okay _ .” 

“Yeah.” Connor feels stupid. She was always a bad drunk, but his mom hungover is so much worse. He should have waited until after dark on the west coast, until she’d already had a few and was back to her normal party princess self. “I got an award,” he tries. 

“You want me to run the fucking applause track?” she snaps. 

He flinches. Stupid. Now she definitely knows she got to him. “Sorry.” He tries to pin his smile back in place. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

“I don’t either, you fucking brat. Call back when you have something worth my time.” She hangs up and Connor is left staring at the wall through his blank screen, blinking hard. He crushes the defeated feeling down inside himself, into the crumpled emptiness in his chest, and staggers back to the table. Liam and David are still having a nothing argument that has evolved into all the wrong ways to cook asparagus. Liam has strong opinions about literally everything and David likes to argue, so this could go on for hours if no one stops them. 

Connor sits, they look at him, and the argument stops. Great. They know something happened now. He’s never been able to control his face when he drinks, and they’re going to figure out every single stupid mistake that he made tonight. 

“Are you okay?” David asks. “You have a little smudgie, right here.” He gestures to just under his right eye. 

Connor swipes where he indicated and comes away with a wet black streak of eyeliner on his finger. Fuck. He’s crying. His head falls onto the table and his arms curl around his stomach and he’s just crying now. It’s all coming out at once and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He feels stupid and childish and like he’s ruining his own stupid party, but he’s just going to have to cry now until the feelings stop and he can get control of himself. 

“Connor, are you okay?” 

Connor shakes his head against the table and lets out a sob. He’s not. He’s never okay. He feels like he’s dying all the time and there’s nothing anyone can do to help. 

“Liam, honey, can you take care of the bill? I want to get him some fresh air,” David says in a low voice. Then his arm is around Connor, helping him to his feet and walking him slowly out of the restaurant where he’s having a total emotional breakdown and embarrassing himself and his family and everyone else eating there that night. The Admiral herself is a frequent patron of _So Below_. Connor might be giving Admiral fucking Clearwater second hand embarrassment because he can’t stop crying like a useless toddler. 

The top deck is cold and empty. They find a quiet spot where a bit of wall mostly blocks the wind and sit together on the ground. Connor’s nice jeans are getting dirty and he’s crying on David’s suit jacket and he just can’t stop. David keeps rubbing his back and saying “I know sweetie. I know.” He doesn’t know. He has no idea. He never knew Luna when she was a drunk or when she decided she didn’t care about her kids or when she threw herself into work and partying and just stopped paying attention to the rest of her life. Connor hasn’t thought about her in years, not really, not beyond passing mention that his mom is the fabulous pin up model Luna LaRune. Not enough to care about her, or to remember that she doesn’t care about him. 

After a few minutes, though, the feelings of this being pointless overpower the feelings of everything being awful forever and he’s able to take a few deep breaths of ice cold air and calm himself down. 

“There we go,” David soothes. “Feel better?” 

“A little,” Connor says. He scrubs his face on the inside of his sweater and tries to get the worst of the dripping eye makeup off. He’s still going to have raccoon eyes until he can wash his face, but he doesn’t look awful. 

“What happened? Do you want to talk about it?” 

“Not really,” he says, and David respects that until Connor can’t stop himself from asking, “Did I get fat?” 

David is quiet for a moment. “You called your mother,” he sighs. 

“Yeah,” Connor admits.

“You know that she’s not the best influence, especially when it comes to body-image. I think you look healthy, much better than you did in rehab. Beyond that, I don’t think my opinion about your weight is going to make you feel any better.” David is comfortably overweight the way people his age tend toward. He lived through years of starvation, before they figured out how to grow enough food for everyone and make shelf-stable protein to fill in the gaps, and is vocally against anyone going hungry for any reason, especially vanity. It was a constant fight when Connor still lived with him, and not one David ever won.

“I’m sorry for… you know. All of that,” Connor says. 

“I’ve never been mad about it. Just sad that you had such a hard time giving yourself what you needed.” He gives Connor a squeeze. “Why did you call her?” 

The little bit of not-awful in Connor’s chest crumbles to dust. “It’s stupid. I was stupid. I should have thought first. I knew she was drinking more and sundown fun up and that the time zones are different and- and-” 

“It’s not your fault,” David cuts him off. He sounds angry under his carefully controlled psychologist voice. “Nothing she’s done has ever been your fault.” 

“Why does she hate me?” Connor asks the question that he’s avoided putting into words for most of his life. 

David sighs. “She doesn’t… hate you. Luna always loved the idea of having children, but children take a lot of work, and she wasn’t ready for that,” he explains. 

“I think I knew that,” Connor says. 

“Mmm. It wasn’t exactly a secret.” 

“What was she like, before she started drinking?” Connor doesn’t have many memories of her without a drink in her hand. 

David is quiet for a long time, staring out over the dark water. 

“Sorry. I didn’t mean- It just kinda… came out. I’m sorry. I’m drunk. Ignore me.” 

“She was funny,” he says quietly. “We were in the PRT track together, doing a vid. It turned into a full blown movie because she kept throwing out one-liners that the writers turned into scenes. I don’t think I stopped laughing the entire time. Three months of filming to make an hour long movie, and by the end of it we knew she was pregnant. A few weeks later we found out it was viable and she was over the moon. Both of us thought we were sterile because it had never worked before, but we had only ever tried with baselines before each other. We were the first generation of out-crosses, and we didn’t know how the genetics worked yet. We did everything right, read all the books, watched all the vids, and somehow managed to make a healthy baby boy.” 

“You did PRT?” Connor asks, not fully believing him. 

“For a little while, mostly just vids. It was something I could do to keep myself afloat while I was working on my psych training. My mom used to say the road to greatness is never straight, and very rarely narrow. I’ve had a lot of jobs I never told you about. Waited tables for a few years at a dock-in place where I had to get from floater to floater on hover shoes. It was terrible.” 

“Anyway. Mom?” 

“Right. Luna. She was a good mom for a couple years. Loved having a baby to dote on, didn’t mind the new parents’ stipend at all, but she wanted to get back to work eventually, and the fleet puts some restrictions on what kinds of hours parents can work. Growing up on boats, so far away from neighbors and friends, makes kids a little isolated when they’re young anyway, and the fleet wants to stop children from growing up completely feral and antisocial. Luna didn’t like anyone telling her what to do, so as soon as her vids started to get popular outside the fleet she left for Hollywood. We were still legally married, but I had no way of going after her with a three year old to take care of, and I had a life here anyway, so I decided that was goodbye and got back to it. Three years later she called me up and told me she had another kid with another babydoll, and did I want to meet him? Of course I did, so she came to visit and brought little baby Connor with her. You know the rest.” 

“When did the drinking start?” Connor asks, not sure why he wants an answer. None of this feels real, really. This isn’t a place he’s supposed to be. This isn’t someone he’s had a real adult conversation with before. This isn’t something he’s ever talked about out loud. 

“I don’t know. She always liked liquor, but she stopped for a bit right before and right after Liam was born. California made it worse. I know childhood wasn’t easy for you. I’m sorry she couldn’t be what you needed. I’m sorry I couldn’t get you away from her sooner.” 

“It really wasn’t that bad.” Connor doesn’t want this to be a thing, where they try to have a hard conversation about how he grew up. “Dad kinda sucked when he was angry, but he didn’t live with us most of the time. Mom was okay. She mostly left me alone. A lot of kids have it worse.” 

David is quiet, not agreeing, not disagreeing, just silently sitting with Connor on the cold deck of the  _ So Below _ . The lake is still tonight. There are lights from ships in the distance, but nothing near enough to hear cutting through the water. 

Liam finds them eventually. He hands them their coats and says “We’re all settled out. I told them you got an emergency ping and had to take Connor home.” 

David gets up and helps Connor to his feet. “Is everyone okay to drive? I wouldn’t mind doing a lap of the lake if it meant getting everyone home safely.” 

“I’ll take Corny home. We’re less than a mile apart anyway,” Liam says. 

“I’m fine,” Connor says. 

“You’re swaying. I’ll drive you,” Liam says, ignoring his protests. 

In the end, Connor doesn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. Liam has him palm the drunk block to check and it beeps at him angrily and shuts down his deck hopper. Liam shoves him over and takes the driver’s seat, and they’re moving before Connor can even start over riding the block. 

They’re halfway back to the  _ Reliant  _ before either of them says anything. 

“You were right,” Connor says. 

“About?” Liam asks. 

“Mom. I shouldn’t have tried to talk to her. What is she going to care that I turned into a fucking narc and got rid of the best drugs in the fleet? She and dad would probably disown me.” 

“You called her.” It isn’t a question. 

“Yeah.” 

They’re quiet for another little while. 

“I don’t know if anyone has told you this, or if anyone needs to tell you this,” Liam starts, then stops and focuses on driving for another minute. 

“What?” 

“You’re allowed to give up on her. You don’t have to keep holding out hope that she’s going to turn her life around and suddenly be the mom you always dreamed of. She’s an adult who can make her own choices, and so are you. You’re not… required to love her.” 

Connor looks up at the stretch of sky he can see around the deck-hopper’s rain-shield. He knows that. Some part of him has always known that. They’re related, but what the fuck does that mean anyway? She made him, but she made a lot of mistakes she’s never taken responsibility for. That doesn’t mean he owes her anything. He hasn’t seen her face to face in twelve years, and he doubts he’s ever going to again. 

“Okay?” Liam asks. 

“Yeah,” Connor says. “You too. I know she was kind of shitty to you when we visited.” 

“Kind of. But I gave up trying to make her love me when I was ten years old. She doesn’t have a lot of love to give, and isn’t the type of person who hands it out for free.” 

They get back to the  _ Reliant  _ and Connor stumbles out onto the deck. Standing up is terrible and he wants to stop doing it as soon as possible. 

“Be safe, Corncob. I’d miss you if something happened to you,” Liam says, voice thick

“Oh my fucking god. You are  _ not  _ about to start crying right now,” Connor laughs. 

“Of course not you fucking brat. I’m just trying to be  _ nice _ . Maybe you should try it sometime.” 

“Go the fuck home, Liam. No one wants you here.” 

“ _ Rich  _ wants me here,” Liam teases him. “Maybe I’ll stay for a couple hours.” 

“No. No I am not having this conversation with your disgusting ass. Go _home_. I’m going to bed.” Connor marches down the steps, ignoring whatever Liam yells after him and throwing up a one-finger salute behind him as he goes. 

His family is awful. He still falls asleep feeling better than he has in years. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you guys enjoyed this little story. It's been a lot of fun writing and posting it and reading all your comments. As previously stated you can follow me on tumblr at rockshitty.tumblr.com where I post fic updates and other assorted trash. 
> 
> We have a discord, too. It's pretty quiet right now, but hopefully as more people join there will be more conversation. You can find us here, https://discord.gg/EAASeqJ 
> 
> Come drop by and let me know what you thought, and what you want to see next from me, or leave a comment here and I'll see it when it shows up in my inbox. 
> 
> Love you guys. Thanks for sticking with me for the first fic in a new fandom.

**Author's Note:**

> How was that? Fun? Awful? I have a lot more written and plans to post regularly for the next few weeks, at least. Leave a Kudos if you liked it, and a comment if you have something to say. Attention fuels my writing engine, good or bad. 
> 
> (I also might be looking for a beta reader if anyone wants advanced access to the first six chapters.)


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